-Biiaav 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


THE  EXPOSITOR’S  LIBRARY 

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Prof.  Henry  Drummond,  F.R.S.E. 
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Rev.  R.  W.  Dale,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

The  Jewish  Temple  and  the  Chris¬ 
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Professor  A.  S.  Peake,  D.D. 
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Rev.  J.  G.  Greenhough,  M.A. 
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The  Ascent  through  Christ 

Rev.  Principal  E.  Griffith  Jones,  B.A. 
Studies  on  the  Old  Testament 

Professor  F.  Godet,  D.D. 

Studies  on  the  New  Testament 

Professor  F.  Godet,  D.D. 

Studies  on  St.  Paul’s  Epistles 

Professor  F.  Godet,  d.d. 

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Christianity  in  the  Modern  World 
Rev.  D.  S.  Cairns,  M.A. 
Israel’s  Iron  Age 

Rev.  Marcus  Dods,  d.d. 

The  City  of  God 

Rev.  A.  M.  Fairbairn,  M.A.,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Christ’s  Service  of  Love 

Rev.  Prof.  Hugh  Black,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Humanity  and  God 

Rev.  Samuel  Chadwick. 

The  Work  of  Christ 

Rev.  Principal  P.  T.  Forsyth,  D.D. 

Sidelights  from  Patmos 

Rev.  George  Matheson,  d.d. 

The  Teaching  of  Jesus 

Rev.  George  Jackson,  B.A. 

The  Miracles  of  Our  Lord 

Rev.  Professor  John  Laidlaw,  d.d. 

The  Creation  Story  in  the  Light  of 
To-Day  Rev.  Charles  Wenyon,  M.D. 

Saints  and  Sinners  of  Hebrew  His¬ 
tory  Rev.  J.  G.  Greenhough,  M.A. 

Via  Sacra  Rev.  T.  H.  Darlow. 

The  Trial  and  Death  of  Jesus  Christ 
Rev.  Prof.  James  Stalker,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Aspects  of  Christ 

Rev.  Principal  W.  B.  Selbie,  M.A. 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ 

Rev.  Professor  James  Orr,  M.A.,  D.D. 

The  Doctrines  of  Grace 

Rev.  John  Watson,  M.A.,  D.D. 

Cardinal  Virtues 

Rev.  Canon  W.  C.  E.  Newbolt,  M.A. 

Speaking  Good  of  His  Name 

Ven.  Archdeacon  Wilberforce,  d.d. 

Living  Theology  Archbishop  Benson. 
Heritage  of  the  Spirit 

Bishop  Mandell  Creighton. 

The  Knowledge  of  God 

Bishop  Walsham  How. 

A  Devotional  Commentary  on  St. 
Paul’s  Epistles  to  the  Colos- 
SIANS  AND  THESSALONIANS 

Joseph  Parker,  D.D. 

A  Devotional  Commentary  on  St. 
Paul’s  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians 
Joseph  Parker,  d.d. 

Bible  Studies  in  Living  Subjects 

Rev.  Ambrose  Shepherd,  D.D. 

IN  PREPARATION 


LONDON  :  HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON. 


CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


BY  THE 


REV.  W.  C.  E.  NEWBOLT 


CANON  AND  CHANCELLOR  OF  S.  PAUL’S  CATHEDRAL,  ETC. 


HODDER  AND  STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK  TORONTO 


LONDON 


✓ 


PREFACE 


This  volume  consists  of  sermons  delivered 
at  S.  Paul’s  during  the  preacher’s  months 
of  residence. 

The  first  four,  which  give  the  title  to  the 
book,  deal  with  those  great  virtues  which  are 
at  the  bottom  of  all  systems  of  morality; 
and  are  called  “  cardinal  ”  in  contradistinction 
to  the  three  theological  virtues  of  Faith, 
Hope,  and  Charity. 

The  other  sermons  have  to  deal  with  sub¬ 
jects  either  of  special  interest  to  men  of 
this  generation,  as,  e.g .,  the  beginning  of 
the  New  Century,  or  the  Coronation  of 
King  Edward  VII.,  or  with  subjects  of  such 
permanent  importance  as  the  life  and  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  a  great  city.  The  reader  must 
bear  in  mind  that  sermons  have  a  special 
characteristic  of  their  own,  viz.,  to  arrest 


y 


vi 


PREFACE 


attention  and  interest  a  mixed  audience,  as 
well  as  to  teach  great  truths  of  religion  to 
those  who  are  willing  to  hear.  And  as  ser¬ 
mons,  not  as  essays,  they  are  submitted  by 
the  preacher  to  a  wider  audience  than  can 
be  reached  from  the  pulpit,  with  an  earnest 
hope  that  their  defects  may  be  overlooked, 
and  their  aim  recognised  in  preparing,  how¬ 
ever  imperfectly,  the  way  of  the  Lord  in 
the  hearts  of  His  faithful  people. 


3,  Amen  Court,  E.C., 
March  30,  1903. 


W.  C.  E.  N. 


CONTENTS 


I. 

Temperance  .... 

PAGE 

1 

II. 

Prudence  .... 

.  25 

III. 

Justice . 

.  49 

IY. 

Fortitude  .... 

.  73 

V. 

The  New  Century 

.  93 

VI. 

The  Citizenship  of  Heaven 

.  119 

VII. 

The  King  .... 

.  141 

rIII. 

The  God  of  Glory 

.  165 

IX. 

The  Lord  of  Hosts 

.  187 

I 

TEMPERANCE 


2 


* 


I 


TEMPERANCE 

A  Sermon  Preached  in  S.  Paul’s 
Cathedral  in  August,  1900. 

‘  And  if  a  man  love  righteousness,  her  labours  are  virtues : 
for  she  teacheth  temperance  and  prudence,  justice  and 
fortitude  :  which  are  such  things,  as  men  can  have  nothing 
more  profitable  in  their  life.” — Wisdom  viii.  7. 

What  a  wonderful  world  this  is  as  the  child 
of  God  takes  his  first  tottering  steps  out  into 
it!  What  a  perplexing  world  he  finds  it 
befoie  he  has  gone  very  far!  The  hand 
which  he  stretches  out  to  caress  is  scratched 
and  torn  ;  the  sun  which  cheered  him  with 
its  brilliant  expanse  of  light  smites  him  by 
day,  the  moon  smites  him  by  night.  The 
fruits  which  look  so  tempting,  poison  as 
well  as  feed,  are  bitter  as  well  as  sweet.  A 
mystery  hangs  over  creation,  it  is  a  puzzle 
to  which  he  has  no  key ;  he  buys  experience 
at  a  heavy  cost,  and  learns  that  he  must  move, 
and  walk,  and  touch,  and  taste  only  with 
caution  and  constant  care. 


3 


4 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


It  is  so  with  the  fuller  world  which  opens 
out  to  him  as  a  man,  through  the  paths  of 
perception,  intellect,  and  experiment.  He 
pursues  a  road  littered  with  failures,  and 
lined  with  the  sick  and  wounded  who  have 
sunk  down  only  to  die.  The  literature  of  the 
world,  its  proverbs,  its  sayings,  are  full  of  the 
puzzle,  the  pain,  the  disappointment,  the 
anger  that  a  world  which  looks  so  fair, 
and  promises  so  much,  should  strike  without 
warning,  poison  with  such  sweetness,  and  kill 
with  such  heartlessness.  The  inspired  apostle, 
as  he  looked  out  over  creation,  saw  all  things 
as  it  were  with  upturned  head,  waiting  for 
the  reproach  of  failure  and  misery  to  be  rolled 
away  from  them.  “  The  earnest  expectation 
of  the  creature  w^aiteth  for  the  manifestation 
of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creature  was 
made  subject  to  vanity,  not  willingly,  but 
by  reason  of  Him  who  hath  subjected  the 
same  in  hope.”  1 

And  so  we  shall  find  different  attitudes 
adopted  towards  the  world  by  those  who 
knew  its  fascinations  and  dreafied  its  assaults. 
There  have  been  men,  there  are  now,  who 
have  stood  outside  it  altogether  as  far  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  to  do  so.  Philosophers, 
who  have  spurned  with  scorn  things  which 
could  be  so  treacherous,  and  which  offered  so 

1  Rom.  viii.  20. 


TEMPERANCE 


5 


little  real  satisfaction;  hermits  who  have  gone 
away  to  their  caves  in  the  mountains  saying, 
If  we  are  to  live  in  the  world,  at  least  it  must 
be  made  a  place  where  a  man  can  live  decently 
without  constant  fear  of  corruption.  “  To 
despise  the  world,  to  despise  no  one,  to  despise 
self,  to  despise  being  despised,  these  are  four 
good  things,”  so  ran  the  old  legend. 

But  there  were  others  who  knew  that 
their  lot  was  cast  in  this  world,  and  that 
they  must  live  in  it,  if  not  of  it,  and  win 
the  prize  of  victory  out  of  its  conflicts,  and 
be  hardened  by  its  buffets,  and  braced  by 
its  disappointments,  and  they  pointed  out 
and  elaborated  certain  precautions  and 
methods  which  a  good  man  was  bound  to 
take,  not  only  if  he  wished  to  avoid  evil, 
but  also  if  he  wished  to  gain  to  himself  good 
out  of  the  contact  with  evil.  The  experience 
of  mankind  pointed  out  four  main  attitudes 
to  be  assumed,  four  great  virtues  to  be 
acquired,  four  potent  habits  to  be  mastered, 
which  are  famous  in  ancient  systems,  and 
which  Christianity  itself  has  taken  over  and 
amplified.  They  are  those  which  the  author 
of  the  Book  of  Wisdom  has  also  specified 
as  the  fruit  of  wisdom — Temperance,  Pru¬ 
dence,  Justice,  and  Fortitude. 

These  are  well  known  as  the  four  cardinal 
virtues — virtues,  that  is,  on  which  a  man’s 


6 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


life  is  hinged,  virtues  which  help  a  man 
to  govern  his  actions  in  view  of  the  tempta¬ 
tions,  difficulties,  and  dangers  which  beset 
his  journey  through  the  world. 

Temperance  teaches  him  the  child’s  first 
lesson,  not  to  touch.  Prudence  teaches  him 
how  to  avoid  moral  blunders  and  the  taking 
of  wrong  paths.  Justice  teaches  him  that 
he  is  not  the  only  man  in  the  world,  that 
there  are  others  who  have  rights  in  it  as 
well  as  he;  while  Fortitude  tells  him  that 
many  of  the  obstacles  which  he  meets  are 
not  there  merely  to  bar  his  progress,  but  are 
set  to  divert  the  stream  of  his  life  into  fresh 
channels  of  usefulness.  Without  some  such 
virtues,  which  the  wisdom  and  experience  of 
men  were  guided  by  God  to  discover,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  pass  through  the  world 
unscathed,  or  to  attain  to  that  perfection 
which  God  designs  for  His  children. 

These  solid  virtues  are  as  necessary  to-day, 
dear  brethren,  as  they  ever  were;  Christianity 
has  but  elevated  them,  and  made  them  more 
easy  of  attainment  than  they  were  before. 
It  was  the  great  aim  of  Christ’s  religion 
to  roll  away  the  reproach  which  vitiated  the 
best  efforts  of  the  heathen  world,  that  they 
knew  what  was  right  and  did  what  was 
wrong ;  that  with  high  precepts  they  had  but 
indifferent  practice.  The  Gospel  supplied  to 


TEMPERANCE 


7 


men  the  means  of  reaching  the  heights  which 
appeared  to  be  inaccessible  before;  and  availed 
not  merely  to  show  men  what  was  right,  but 
to  help  them  until,  by  the  gifts  of  grace,  they 
were  able  to  reach  it. 


I. 

Now  Temperance  is  a  virtue  which  needs 
to  be  reclaimed  and  restored  to  its  true  posi¬ 
tion.  It  is  quite  true  that  by  reason  of 
centuries  of  bad  habit,  we  in  these  northern 
islands  have  followed  for  so  many  years  the 
vicious  habit  of  excess  in  the  use  of  in¬ 
toxicating  drinks,  that  we  have  become 
terrified,  as  well  we  might,  at  the  moral, 
physical,  and  spiritual  havoc  that  this  one 
sin  is  working  amongst  us.  The  governors  of 
our  gaols,  the  doctors  in  our  hospitals,  those 
who  have  care  of  asylums,  the  clergy,  the 
magistrates,  those  who  know  anything  of  the 
state  of  their  fellow-men  combine  in  saying 
that  the  sin  of  drunkenness  is  the  national 
besetting  sin,  and  the  most  terrible  curse 
which  is  devastating  our  land.  And  in  view 
of  this  great  and  admitted  evil,  Temperance, 
as  a  word,  is  generally  confined  to  self- 
restraint  in  the  use  of  intoxicants,  amounting 
to  abstaining  from  them  altogether.  Tern- 


8 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


perance  is  this,  but  it  is  much  more.  We 
must  rescue  it  from  such  a  partial  and  limited 
use  to  its  true  meaning  as  governing  all  a  man’s 
actions,  not  regulating  his  dealings  only  with 
one  particular  form  of  temptation. 

Temperance  is,  as  I  ventured  to  say  just 
now,  the  virtue  which  enables  a  man  as  he 
passes  through  the  world  not  to  touch.  He 
is  surrounded  with  temptations  to  self-in¬ 
dulgence,  temperance  tells  him  at  once,  the 
when,  the  how,  the  how  much,  the  how 
long,  what  to  take,  and  what  to  avoid.  Is  he 
tempted  to  hasty  speech?  Temperance  puts 
a  bridle  on  his  lips.  Is  he  tempted  to  indulge 
evd  passion?  Temperance  controls  him.  Is 
he  tempted  to  misuse  his  appetites?  Tem¬ 
perance  shows  him  their  proper  and  legitimate 
use,  and  rigidly  restrains  all  that  exceeds 
that  use.  So  that  it  is  a  master  virtue. 
You  will  need  it,  dear  brethren,  just  as 
much  as  the  poor  drunkard  needs  it,  in 
the  quiet  simplicity  of  your  every-day  life. 
Don  t  let  us  imitate  the  Pharisee  once 
mor  e .  God,  I  thank  Thee  that  I  am  not 

as  this  drunkard,  this  degraded  slave  to  his 
appetite."  Perhaps  that  has  not  been  your 
temptation,  perhaps  God  has  mercifully 
shielded  you  from  it.  What  of  the  inward 
purity  of  your  life  ?  What  of  the  disabling 
ease  and  selfish  indulgence  which  so  ruins 


TEMPERANCE 


9 


and  disfigures  our  Christian  profession  ? 
What  of  our  hasty  words,  our  greediness, 
our  selfishness  ?  Ah !  dear  brethren,  we  are 
all  too  much  like  children,  who  cry  for  all 
that  they  see,  and  stretch  out  greedy  hands 
for  all  that  they  can  get ;  who,  if  they  dread 
the  fire,  dread  it  because  they  have  been 
burned  ;  who,  if  they  are  shy  of  evil,  are  shy 
because  they  have  been  bit,  and  find  it  the 
best  policy  to  keep  to  the  paths  of  integrity. 
Temperance  is  a  great  virtue,  a  cardinal 
virtue,  which  helps  a  man  to  keep  himself 
in  check  on  principle,  and  to  move  amidst 
all  the  manifold  riches  of  the  world  with  the 
liberty  and  ease  which  belong  to  a  man 
who  can  taste  or  not  taste,  use  or  not  use, 
take  or  leave  alone,  with  a  freedom  and 
certainty  which  characterize  the  man  who 
reigns  supreme  within  the  circle  of  his  own 
life. 


“  Self -reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control. 

These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power. 

Yet  not  for  power  (power  of  herself 
Would  come  uncall’d  for),  but  to  live  by  law, 

Acting  the  law  we  live  by  without  fear  : 

And  because  right  is  right,  to  follow  right 
Were  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  consequence.” 

Let  us  rescue  Temperance  from  its  partial 
meaning  and  its  limited  significance  until  we 
find  in  it  the  first  of  those  cardinal  virtues, 


10 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


which  bear  up  the  integrity  of  life,  as  it 
moves  among  forces  which  might  shatter 
and  disintegrate  it,  with  the  treacherous 
connivance  of  unbridled  desire. 


II. 

There  are  certain  well-defined  stages 
in  the  development  of  Temperance  which  we 
should  do  well  to  consider.  For  let  no  one 
believe  for  one  moment  that  a  virtue  like 
this  grows  up  in  us  without  effort,  or  is 
inherited  with  transmitted  qualities.  Human 
nature  is  the  same  wherever  we  find  it. 
Where  every  living  thing,  if  left  to  itself, 
may  do  one  of  three  things,  either  stay  as  it  is 
or  get  better  or  get  worse.  Human  nature,  if 
left  undirected  and  undeveloped,  by  a  law 
of  degeneration,  tends  to  become  gradually 
but  inevitably  worse.1  Passions  will  not  mind 
themselves,  inclinations  to  evil  will  not  pass 
away  with  our  advanced  growth.  Every  one 
who  possesses  the  unspeakable  blessing  of 
Temperance,  or  the  noble  faculty  of  self- 
restraint  in  the  proper  regulation  of  desire, 
has  learned  by  many  a  struggle  and  many 
a  hard-fought  combat  the  strength  of  passion 

1  See  Drummond,  “  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,” 
Degeneration. 


TEMPERANCE 


11 


and  the  effort  required  to  assert  the  sup¬ 
remacy  of  the  will.  He  has  known  what  it 
is  to  feel  the  murderous  onslaught  threatening 
to  sweep  him  away ;  he  has  known  what 
forces  he  can  summon  to  his  aid,  and  the 
certainty  of  victory  and  salvation  to  those 
who  endure  to  the  end.  And  therefore  to 
him  who  would  possess  the  virtue  of  Tem¬ 
perance  there  comes  first  of  all  this  message 
to  the  soul,  which  the  ancient  world  received 
as  an  oracle  from  Heaven,  “  Know  thyself.” 
Self-knowledge  is  one  real  step  towards  the 
attainment  of  true  Temperance. 

My  brethren,  we  vary  our  moods  from  time 
to  time,  now  we  are  vaunting  our  powers  and 
glorying  in  the  possibilities  of  almost  infinite 
development  and  progress.  “Lord,  what  is 
man  ?  ”  we  say  with  wonder  and  admiration  ; 
while  at  another  time  we  are  humbled  to  the 
dust  by  the  spectacle  of  passion  overmastering- 
reason,  pushing  aside  prudence,  scattering 
to  the  winds  the  endowments  which  education 
has  contributed  ;  and  we  say,  “  Lord,  what  is 
man  ?  ”  Was  there  ever  a  living  being  so  un¬ 
controlled,  so  capable  of  degradation,  so  mad 
in  his  frenzied  rush  after  evil  gratification  ? 
My  brethren,  it  is  a  great  moral  help  to  know 
ourselves,  to  know  our  history,  to  know  our 
constituent  elements,  to  know  the  ills  to 
which  we  are  exposed,  and  the  Divine  help 


12 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


which  it  is  ours  to  welcome.  “  Know  thyself.” 
It  is  a  great  help  to  Temperance.  A  voice 
within  is  ever  whispering  :  Man  is  frail,  every¬ 
one  around  you  is  tainted  and  vitiated  in  some 
way  or  another  by  contact  with  the  world. 
You  cannot  struggle  against  nature ;  to  curb 
the  horse  of  desire  is  only  to  make  it  restive, 
and  to  precipitate  the  catastrophe  which 
is  bound  to  come.  It  is  by  gently  yielding 
that  the  final  peace  will  come,  not  by  a 
stubborn  resistance  to  the  inevitable.  How 
many  a  man  is  beaten  down  by  that  sophistry, 
until,  instead  of  managing  and  ruling  the 
passions,  his  passions  rule  him  !  A  little  self- 
knowledge,  a  little  acquaintance  with  his  own 
history,  will  show  him  that  nature  does  not 
mean  the  same  thing  everywhere,  that  the 
nature  of  plants  is  one  thing,  of  the  lower 
animals  is  another  thing,  while  the  nature 
of  man  stands  out  as  a  thing  by  itself.  Man 
is  a  free  state  in  a  land  of  despotisms.  Man 
has  a  ruling  power  within  him  known  as 
reason,  which  is  designed  to  be  and  is  absolutely 
free.  No  allurement  of  this  world  can  force 
a  man  to  yield  to  it,  unless  his  will  gives 
consent.  No  coercion  of  superior  force  can 
overrule  a  man’s  reason,  unless  his  will  first 
consents.  Further,  the  great  God  Himself 
wills  not  to  force  man  to  attain  even  to  his 
highest  good.  He  puts  before  him  life  and 


TEMPERANCE 


13 


death,  blessing  and  cursing,  but  the  man  must 
choose.  What  an  immense  step  towards  true 
T emperance  it  is  to  know  this !  All  these 
rebellious  passions  which  clamour  for  gratifi¬ 
cation,  all  these  allurements  which  demand 
that  I  should  yield  to  them,  all  the  clamour 
of  corrupt  public  opinion  which  demands  that 
I  should  bow  to  it,  can  all  be  met,  subdued, 
and  dispersed  by  a  sanctified  reason  and  a 
firm  will. 

It  is  possible  that  I  am  speaking  to-day 
to  some  one  who  is  being  carried  along,  a 
slave  to  some  sin  from  which  he  longs  to  be 
free.  He  has  got  now  into  a  state  of  despair  ; 
he  believes  that  he  cannot  help  it,  and  he  con¬ 
soles  himself  by  seeing  other  slaves  at  his  side. 
I  think  one  of  the  most  ironical  and  sad 
spectacles  in  the  recent  rejoicings  for  deliver¬ 
ance  and  victory  was  to  see  masses  of  men 
degrading  themselves  by  excess  and  shouting, 
“  Britons  never  will  be  slaves  !  ”  Ah  !  if  we 
knew  ourselves  enough  to  be  able  to  feel  that 
a  Christian  never  can  be  a  slave,  that  he  was 
born  to  rule,  and  must  rule,  it  would  liberate 
many  a  captive  and  emancipate  many  a  bond- 
servant.  It  is  being  freely  discussed  now  as  to 
whether  or  not  it  is  desirable  to  warn  young 
people  beforehand  in  a  definite  way  of  the 
dangers  that  must  inevitably  cross  their  path. 
It  is  a  question  beset  with  difficulties,  and,  in 


14 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


view  of  the  priceless  and  irreparable  value 
of  innocence  where  it  can  be  maintained,  a 
question  which  can  only  be  entertained  as  the 
lesser  of  two  evils ;  but  at  the  same  time  there 
is  no  doubt  that  a  wise  estimate  of  our  own 
peculiar  dangers,  a  prudent  calculation  of  our 
force,  and  a  just  appreciation  of  the  enemy’s 
real  strength  would  help  a  man.  Courage! 
After  all,  no  temptation  has  overtaken  you 
hut  that  which  is  common  to  man.  God 
Himself,  out  of  the  temptation,  and  by  means 
of  it,  will  provide  the  way  of  escape.  Courage  ! 
because  you  are  a  man,  because  God  has  given 
you  a  sovereign  reason,  and  bidden  you  reign 
supreme  over  your  enemies.  Courage  !  even 
in  front  of  hereditary  weakness,  in  the  face 
of  that  affinity  to  sin  which  you  know  you 
have  inherited.  Perhaps  the  right  hand  must 
come  off,  perhaps  the  right  eye  must  be 
plucked  out.  Still  courage  !  because  He  made 
you.  It  is  God  that  made  you.  “  He  knoweth 
whereof  we  are  made.  He  remembereth  that 
we  are  but  dust.”  Courage  !  because  grace  is 
stronger  than  nature.  To  know  myself  is 
to  know  that  I  have  that  nature  which  He  for 
ever  dignified  by  the  Incarnation.  It  is  to 
know  that  God  is  almighty,  and  that  the 
omnipotence  of  God  does  not  stop  short, 
baffled  by  human  passions. 

After  “know  thyself,”  Temperance  calls  to 


TEMPERANCE 


15 


us  from  her  pure  height,  and  says,  “  Control 
thyself.”  Certainly  the  most  superficial  intro¬ 
spective  glance  will  show  us  the  tremendous 
power  of  the  forces  which  rage  within  us. 
Reputations  have  been  lost,  fortunes  have 
been  dissipated,  health  wrecked — yes,  cities 
destroyed,  by  reason  of  a  wandering  and 
rebellious  desire.  It  is  a  motley  crew,  full 
of  dangerous  energy,  and  ripe  for  rebellion, 
that  passes  beneath  the  sovereign  throne 
of  the  will  which  is  set  to  rule  within  a 
man  the  passions,  desires,  and  forces  which 
are  there  for  his  completeness  and  for  the 
fulfilment  of  his  mission.  My  brethren,  have 
we  yet  mastered  this  great  stage  in  the 
development  of  Temperance  known  as  self- 
control  ?  Does  anything  pass  within  the 
portals  of  your  heart  of  which  the  will  has  no 
cognisance,  or  is  powerless  to  resist?  You 
remember  how  the  Apostle  spoke  of  a  self- 
control  which  brings  into  captivity  every 
thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ. 

There  are  many  checks,  thank  God  !  placed 
by  public  opinion,  by  civilisation,  by  society, 
whatever  you  like  to  call  it,  on  the  unbridled 
exercise  of  our  likes  and  dislikes,  our  passions 
and  desires.  There  is  what  we  may  call  the 
ritual  of  propriety  which  fences  round  the 
freedom  of  social  intercourse.  A  man  must 
choose  his  words,  must  be  respectful  in  his 


16 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


actions,  must  regard  prejudices,  obey  the  rules 
of  etiquette,  be  orderly  and  well  behaved. 
And  it  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  all  this  as  a  safeguard  of  greater 
things.  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  a  nation  when  it 
allows  itself  to  break  down  the  proprieties 
of  social  life.  Degradation  of  morals  filteis 
through  with  alarming  rapidity  from  the 
stage-play  which  allows  itself  to  tear  away 
the  screen  of  propriety,  and  scatters  it  con¬ 
temptuously  to  the  winds  as  prudery ;  a 
strong  situation  in  a  realistic  novel  means  a 
great  deal  more  than  a  shock  to  the  artistic 
sense  or  the  religious  feeling  of  good  men  ;  it 
is  again  an  attempt  to  pluck  away  the  barrier 
of  propriety.  Free-and-easy  manners,  loose 
banter,  coarse  slang,  unmannerly  behaviour 
these  are  not  a  return  to  real  life  uncorrupted 
by  artificial  distinctions  and  uninjured  by 
pedantry ;  they  are  the  deliberate  destruction 
of  the  barriers  set  around  good  behaviour,  the 
bulwarks  of  social  discipline  and  the  ritual  of 
its  inner  life.  Self-control  within  has  lost  a 
valuable  ally  and  subsidiary  help  if  it  finds 
itself  deserted  by  self-restraint  without  in 
the  region  of  common  life.  But  ritual  is  not 
religion,  and  social  propriety  is  not  self-con¬ 
trol.  Temperance  is  a  great  principle  within 
the  man ;  it  means,  as  I  have  said,  a  setting 
the  will  upon  a  firm  throne,  so  that  all  life 


TEMPERANCE 


17 


goes  forward  on  an  even  basis  and  with  a 
fixed  purpose,  where  nothing  is  rushed  under 
the  sudden  influence  of  an  impulse,  nor  the 
better  overborne  by  the  worse,  nor  reason 
clamoured  down  by  passion,  nor  the  body 
cramped  by  fear,  nor  ruined  by  indulgence, 
but  all  things  are  ordered  and  settled  by  an 
equable  rule. 

My  brethren,  are  we  masters  in  our  own 
house  ?  Do  we  rule  within  the  circle  of  our  own 
homes  ?  Have  we  mastered  the  true  principles 
of  self-control,  so  that  passions  and  impulses 
assume  their  proper  place  under  the  guidance 
of  the  will  ?  Self  is  a  very  wide  empire ;  while 
we  are  holding  the  capital  against  deadly  sin 
a  fierce  guerilla  warfare  may  be  raging  in  the 
outskirts  of  our  life,  whose  issue  we  do  not 
foresee,  and  whose  danger  we  do  not  accurately 
forecast.  That  sin  which  does  so  easily  beset 
us,  which  some  day  we  are  going  to  turn 
out,  has  every  appearance  of  having  come  to 
stay.  It  is  true  it  may  be  hidden,  the  flag  is 
flying  bravely  over  every  fortress  in  our  life  : 
the  world  does  not  know  that  we  have  come 
to  a  secret  understanding  with  just  this  one 
sin,  which,  after  all,  we  must  assume  to  exist 
in  many  cases  besides  our  own.  The  will  has 
an  awkward  knack  of  showing  that  it  has  been 
beaten  in  some  direction,  and  is  curtailed  in 
the  extent  of  its  dominion.  Vacillation,  weak- 

3 


18 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


ness  in  the  matter  of  principle,  these  betray 
the  loss  of  perfect  self-control.  Ah,  my  breth¬ 
ren,  as  we  look  at  the  wide  area  over  which 
we  are  called  to  rule,  we  may  well  feel  anxious. 
Memory,  with  its  dark  record  of  defeats ; 
imagination,  with  its  treacherous  fantasies 
and  strange  illusions ;  the  five  senses,  with 
their  ready  service,  need  constant  repression, 
and  constant  watchfulness.  The  tongue,  again, 
is  a  region  of  difficulty  sufficient  to  tax  the 
effort  of  the  strongest  will  in  lessons  of  self- 
control.  “If  any  man  offend  not  in  word,” 
says  St.  James,  “  the  same  is  a  perfect  man 
and  able  also  to  bridle  the  whole  body.” 
Self-control  is  no  child’s  play,  it  reaches  right 
away  from  our  actions  to  the  inmost  recesses 
of  the  heart.  But  self-control  stands  in  the 
very  forefront  of  Temperance. 

“  Know  thyself,”  “  Control  thyself  ” — these 
are  good  and  essential,  but,  further,  from  her 
throne  of  excellence  Temperance  cries,  “  Deny 
thyself.”  The  will  must  not  wait  to  be 
attacked,  the  will  must  not  wait  to  show  that 
it  is  master  in  days  of  turbulence,  and  in  the 
fierce  blasts  of  passion.  Before  the  attack 
comes,  while  all  is  peaceful,  when  no  tempter  is 
in  sight,  while  all  is  calm,  the  will  must 
exercise  herself  in  her  discipline  by  self-denial. 
The  way  to  resist  indulgence  in  things  unlaw¬ 
ful  is  to  accustom  the  powers  and  faculties  to 


TEMPERANCE 


19 


obedience  in  giving  up  even  things  lawful. 
This  is  no  doctrine  for  a  self-indulgent  age,  but 
it  is  sound  doctrine  for  all  that.  There  is  a 
great  dislike  to  anything  like  systematic  fast¬ 
ing  ;  the  fast  of  Lent,  the  weekly  fast  of  Friday, 
and  the  other  days  of  obligation  have  to  plead 
hard  for  their  observance  and  often  to  deaf 
ears.  We  may  well  be  allowed  to  wonder 
whether,  if  fasting  had  taken  its  proper  place, 
such  severe  repression  would  have  been  neces¬ 
sary  in  order  to  produce  a  proper  attitude 
towards  the  desolating  sin  of  drunkenness. 
However  this  may  be,  self-denial  in  things 
lawful,  undertaken  in  the  strength  of  God  and 
in  dependence  on  His  will,  does  leave  a  man 
less  exposed  to  the  murderous  assaults  of 
appetite.  He  is  less  likely  to  be  allured  and 
entrapped  into  what  is  wrong  who  shows 
that  he  can,  where  there  is  no  prohibition, 
touch  or  not  touch,  taste  or  not  taste,  with 
absolute  freedom  in  obedience  to  the  dictates 
of  the  will. 

So,  dear  brethren,  see  how  our  Blessed  Lord 
insisted  upon  all  His  followers  taking  up  the 
Cross.  “  If  any  man  will  come  after  Me,  let 
him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his  cross  and 
follow  Me.”  There  ought  to  be  less  of  the 
free-and-easy  life,  less  of  the  shrinking 
from  hard  things.  The  Devil  trades  largely 
upon  the  fact  that  men  speak  and  act  as 


20 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


if  the  fact  of  the  presence  of  a  strong 
inclination  necessitated  its  immediate  grati¬ 
fication.  To  wish  for  a  thing  intensely  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  necessary  immedi¬ 
ately  to  satisfy  that  wish.  Rather  the  mere 
fact  of  the  existence  of  a  strong  desire  should 
put  a  man  on  his  guard,  lest  the  will  should  be 
forced,  and  passion  reign  in  the  place  of  reason. 
A  man  once  asked  his  spiritual  adviser  what 
was  the  meaning  of  “  dying  unto  sin,”  and  he 
was  told  in  a  symbolical  manner  that  it  was  to 
behave  like  a  dead  man  in  the  presence  of  that 
which  moves  or  excites  to  sin.  Thus,  self-denial 
disciplines  all  the  rebellious  forces,  brings  them 
under  the  power  of  reason,  so  that  when 
passion  calls  there  is  no  response,  when  temp¬ 
tation  allures  there  is  no  wavering  of  allegiance. 
The  temperate  man  has  reckoned  with  all  the 
forces  of  his  being.  He  knows  himself.  He 
has  learned  to  correct  every  impulse  and  to 
steady  every  desire  under  the  assaults  of 
passion.  And  to  this  end,  while  the  battle 
still  threatens  only  at  a  distance,  in  the  quiet, 
uneventful  scenes  of  his  everyday  life,  he  has 
learned  the  discipline  which  comes  from  Self- 
denial  and  the  power  of  well-regulated  desire. 
So  that  the  will,  in  great  things  as  in  little, 
reigns  supreme  within  the  circle  of  her  own 
dominion. 

Christ  our  Lord  and  Master,  when  He  came 


TEMPERANCE 


21 


on  earth  and  set  forth  the  scheme  of  Divine 
sanctification,  recognised  and  accepted  these 
masculine  virtues  as  the  foundation  of  even 
higher  excellences.  But  He  did  more ;  He 
made  them  possible,  not  only  for  grand  heroic 
natures,  but  for  every  one.  Every  one  who 
submits  himself  to  the  rule  of  Christ  may  find 
for  himself  that  which  will  secure  to  him  the 
full  power  of  resistance  and  defence  which  is 
needed  for  the  battle  of  life.  To  every  Chris¬ 
tian  is  given  not  only  to  admire  Temperance 
from  afar,  but  to  be  temperate.  We  know  it 
already,  but  it  needs  again  and  again  insist¬ 
ing  on.  The  wayward  taint  of  hereditary 
weakness,  all  the  difficulties  of  temperament, 
all  the  paralysing  predisposition  to  evil  which 
belong  to  a  fallen  nature,  are  met  and  rectified 
in  Holy  Baptism.  “Ye  must  be  born  again.’ 
This  is  Christ’s  message  to  the  man  who 
despairs  of  human  nature  and  is  paralysed  by 
inherited  sin.  When  the  strong  gusts  of  pas¬ 
sion  now  wax  fierce,  and  temptation  riots  along 
like  a  whirlwind ;  when  every  fresh  blast 
threatens  to  beat  down  into  the  dust  the  faint 
virtue,  and  the  weak  growth  of  holiness,  fresh 
grace  is  promised  in  the  ordinance  of  Confirm¬ 
ation.  This  is  no  renewing  of  vows  in  a  spirit 
of  defiance,  but  a  renewing  of  strength  given 
to  those  who  are  willing  to  wait  upon  God 
and  renew  their  allegiance.  So  every  fresh 


22 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


canker  which  springs  up  in  the  tender  life 
may  be  cut  away  in  penitence,  and  life  be 
restored  in  earnest  amendment.  So  to  him 
who  is  alive  unto  God  fresh  stores  of  grace 
and  strength  are  given  in  Holy  Communion, 
until  the  attractiveness  of  what  is  good  drives 
out  the  fascination  of  what  is  evil ;  until  the 
time  comes  when  the  desire  for  goodness  and 
righteousness  surpasses  the  thirst  of  the 
drunkard  or  the  desire  of  the  sensualist  for 
what  is  evil.  Temperance  in  the  fostering  hand 
of  Christ  becomes  not  only  a  possibility,  but  it 
becomes  alive  with  fresh  beauty,  and  fulfilled 
with  fresh  power. 

Cease  not  your  efforts,  dear  brethren,  until 
you  have  attained  this  master  virtue.  Only 
with  its  restraining  power  strong  upon  us  can 
we  venture  upon  the  dangerous  luxuries  of  an 
ever-increasing  prosperity.  As  fresh  treasures, 
fresh  fascinations  open  up  before  you,  “  know 
thyself  ”  ;  know  whether  they  are  for  you,  or 
whether  from  the  circumstances  of  your  history 
or  the  weakness  of  your  will  you  must  push 
them  on  one  side.  “  Control  thyself  ”  ;  do  not 
allow  even  a  good  thing  to  be  forced  upon 
you,  unless  your  will  and  reason  have  first 
consented,  so  that  you  be  not  enriched  even, 
at  the  price  of  liberty.  “  Deny  thyself.”  The 
Cross,  after  all,  is  the  symbol  of  victory  for 
the  Christian  in  this  and  by  this  he  will  con- 


TEMPERANCE 


23 


quer.  It  is  the  man  who  by  long  discipline 
and  by  the  power  of  grace  has  trained  his 
passions,  exercised  his  senses,  and  curbed  his 
desires,  who  will  reap  in  all  its  fulness  the 
blessing  which  belongs  to  him  who  is  tem¬ 
perate  in  all  things. 

We  meet  together,  dear  brethren,  amidst 
clouds  and  gloom  which  seem  to  envelope  the 
world.  In  China,  perhaps,  at  this  very  mo¬ 
ment  the  fate  of  many  hundred  Europeans  and 
native  Christians  hangs  in  the  balance.  In 
South  Africa  the  long  war  still  smoulders  on. 
The  traveller  who  leaves  our  shores  for  his 
summer  holiday  will  find  three  nations  in 
mourning  :  here  in  England,  all  up  the  Rhine, 
in  sunny  Italy,  the  drooping  flag  and  the 
national  mourning  exhibit  the  same  signs  of 
woe.  We  have  learned  here  in  England  to 
feel  as  a  personal  sorrow  anything  that  affects 
the  happiness  of  our  beloved  Queen,  and  we 
mourn  with  her  for  one  more  loss  in  that 
family  which  has  always  appealed  to  our 
most  cherished  English  traditions.  Happy 
shall  w~e  be,  if  we  lay  to  heart  the  deeper 
lessons  of  these  times  of  sorrow,  and  learn,  as 
we  pass  through  this  world,  that  here  we  have 
no  continuing  city  but  seek  one  to  come.  And 
strong  in  the  great  virtue  of  Temperance,  learn 
to  use  this  world  as  not  abusing  it,  for  the 
fashion  of  this  world  passeth  away. 


II 


PRUDENCE 


II 


PRUDENCE 

A  Sermon  Preached  in  S.  Paul’s 
Cathedral  in  August,  1900. 

“  And  the  lord  commended  the  unjust  steward,  because 
he  had  done  wisely :  for  the  children  of  this  world  are 
in  their  generation  wiser  than  the  children  of  light.” — 
S.  Luke  xvi.  8. 

Besides  Temperance,  which  we  considered 
last  Sunday,  there  stands  out  another  domi¬ 
nant  virtue,  without  which  human  nature 
fails  of  its  highest  perfection,  and  that  is 
Prudence.  The  man  of  the  world  knows 
the  advantage  of  this  virtue  in  business, 
more  perhaps  than  we  know  its  value  in  the 
regulation  of  the  affairs  of  our  inner  life. 
A  long-headed  man  ;  who  is  not  easily  taken 
in ;  who  is  practical,  cautious,  and  undemon¬ 
strative  ;  who  never  trusts  himself  an  inch 
beyond  the  fair  limits  of  safety,  who  can  be 
neither  flattered  nor  frightened,  he  is  more 
trusted  than  the  brilliant  experimentalist 

27 


28 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


who  makes  great  discoveries,  but  who  may 
also  make  great  mistakes,  who  is  led  away 
by  enthusiasm  into  positions  which  he  cannot 
hold,  and  is  led  to  trust  where  he  ought  to 
have  suspected,  and  to  risk  where  he  ought  to 
have  held  his  hand. 

It  is  the  prudent  man  who  pushes  his  way 
to  the  highest  positions  of  commercial  pros¬ 
perity,  and  wins  and  holds  posts  by  calcula¬ 
tion,  which  his  more  brilliant  neighbour  has 
captured  and  lost  again  by  rashness  and  want 
of  method. 

We  do  not,  however,  always  pause  to  see 
the  absolute  necessity  there  is  for  Prudence 
in  the  guiding  and  directing  of  the  more 
serious  concerns  of  human  life.  The  world 
being  what  it  is,  a  man  has  little  chance  of 
passing  through  its  troublesome  waves  who 
has  not  learned  the  Heaven-given  lesson  of 
prudence 

So  necessary  is  it,  that  our  Lord  bids  us 
study  it  from  the  tactics  of  the  enemy. 

Just  as  our  army  in  the  field  has  had  to 
learn  how  to  take  cover  as  well  as  how  to 
advance ;  how  to  practise  the  sort  of  strata¬ 
gem  which  the  country  demands  in  which 
they  are  fighting,  and  to  study  the  successful 
methods  of  those  who  are  set  against  them, 
so,  in  our  spiritual  warfare,  we  may  study 
with  advantage  the  eagerness,  skill,  and 


PRUDENCE 


29 


cleverness  of  those  who  are  organised  for 
our  destruction,  and  also  note  with  wonder, 
and  imitate  where  we  can,  the  practical 
prudence  of  those  who,  having  made  a 
definite  study  of  what  leads  to  worldly 
success,  have  at  whatever  cost,  and  with 
whatever  sacrifice,  devoted  themselves  to 
the  realisation  of  that  which  they  proposed. 


I. 

What  is  Prudence  P  Prudence  is  that 
virtue  which  enables  a  man  to  make  a  good 
choice  in  all  matters  that  concern  his  real 
good.  And  you  will  notice  these  facts  as 
worthy  of  our  consideration,  that  where  we 
talk  of  good  and  bad  God  sometimes  talks  of 
wise  and  foolish  ;  that  the  fool  of  the  Psalmist 
and  the  fool  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  repre¬ 
sents  a  character  who  is  a  great  deal  more 
than  the  intellectually  deficient  or  the  men¬ 
tally  weak  man.  And,  further,  that  of  the 
sevenfold  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  we 
received  at  our  Baptism  and  again  at  our 
Confirmation,  four  have  to  do  with  know¬ 
ledge  in  some  form  or  another — wisdom, 
which  helps  a  man  to  reach  out  to  the  highest 
aims  which  can  be  put  before  him ;  under¬ 
standing,  or  intelligence,  which  represents  a 


30 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


kind  of  spiritualised  instinct ;  counsel,  which 
is  the  power  of  choosing  between  the  good 
and  the  better,  after  deliberation  ;  and  know¬ 
ledge,  which  is  a  Divine  gift  of  that  which 
God  has  been  pleased  to  impart  in  His  various 
modes  of  revelation. 

All  these  things  seem  to  point  to  the  con¬ 
clusion  that  there  is  little  chance,  in  a  com¬ 
plex  world  like  this,  for  a  man  who  hopes 
simply  to  blunder  on  his  way,  with  no  con¬ 
ception  of  whither  he  is  going,  with  no 
realisation  of  the  dangers  which  beset  his 
path,  without  knowing  where  to  rest,  or 
where  to  turn  for  food  or  protection,  without 
power  of  discerning  between  the  right  road 
and  the  wrong,  or  the  good  or  the  better,  the 
high  or  the  highest.  For  a  man  who  does 
this  contemptuously  puts  on  one  side  all  that 
has  been  done  to  help  him.  God’s  two  Books 
of  Revelation  and  experience  lie  unopened. 
The  storehouses  are  provided  in  vain,  and 
the  guides  stand  unemployed  and  distrusted. 

Much  harm  has  been  done  in  the  world  by 
ignorant  men,  perhaps  more  harm  has  been 
done  still  by  weak  men ;  but  great  and  piti¬ 
able  harm  is  being  done  by  stupid  men — men 
who  lie  tossing  like  a  derelict  on  the  tide, 
themselves  speedily  to  become  a  wreck,  but 
in  the  meantime  a  hindrance  and  a  menace  to 
all  who  pass  by  on  the  busy  waterway  of  life. 


PRUDENCE 


31 


n. 

Prudence  is  not  the  prosaic  virtue  of 
the  cautious  and  timid,  of  those  whom  the 
Italian  poet  saw  outside  the  limits  of  hell, 
not  daring  enough  to  sin,  not  adventurous 
enough  for  deeds  of  virtue,  “  men  who  lived 
without  infamy  and  without  praise  ”  ;  but  it 
is  a  virtue  which  reaches  right  up  into  the 
highest  regions  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
action. 

1.  It  must  be  the  common  experience  of 
many  of  us  that  we  have  in  our  daily  life  to 
take  for  granted  many  things  which  we  do 
not  stop  to  prove  and  are  not  always  capable 
of  proving.  We  believe,  and  we  act  on  the 
belief,  although,  perhaps,  we  should  be  able 
only  imperfectly  to  set  forth  the  grounds  of 
it,  that  by  the  law  of  gravitation  we  should 
fall  to  the  ground  if  we  stepped  off  the  dome 
of  this  cathedral.  We  accepted  with  un¬ 
hesitating  confidence  a  few  months  ago  the 
statement  of  the  astronomer  that  the  sun 
would  be  eclipsed  on  such  a  day  and  at  such 
an  hour,  although,  if  asked,  we  should  have 
been  able  to  give  only  a  sorry  account  of  the 
reasons  which  induced  us  to  accept  that 
assurance.  We  think  a  man  an  intellectual 
fanatic  who  is  anxious  to  demonstrate  that 


32 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


the  world  is  not  round,  even  although  our 
arguments  against  him  are  deficient  in  scien¬ 
tific  accuracy.  So  in  the  affairs  of  daily  life, 
we  act  on  the  collected  experience  of  those 
who  are  masters  in  their  different  professions  ; 
as  a  layman  we  feel  disqualified  from  contra¬ 
dicting  a  professional  in  his  own  line,  and 
feel  that  our  soundest  policy  is  to  consult 
those  who  know  best,  and  to  act  on  their 
advice.  And,  therefore,  it  would  seem  that 
in  the  highest  of  all  spheres  of  knowledge,  in 
the  things  which  concern  a  man’s  relations 
to  God,  it  would  be  desirable  not  to  act 
hurriedly  or  on  our  own  impression,  in  the 
face  of  the  collected  experience  and  wisdom 
of  mankind.  It  is  here  that  we  see  one 
function  of  the  great  virtue  “Prudence.”  If 
I  find  it  difficult  to  believe  this  or  that,  at 
least  I  cannot  dismiss  with  a  light  heart  all 
that  has  been  said  about  it,  or  the  common 
tradition  of  mankind ;  at  least  it  may  be 
prudent  to  act  as  if  there  was  a  God,  as  if 
there  were  Heaven,  as  if  there  were  Hell, 
until  more  light  is  vouchsafed  to  me.  Surely 
Prudence  would  say  to  fathers  and  mothers 
of  children,  do  not  consult  your  children  as 
to  whether  or  not  they  will  say  their  prayers, 
or  be  taught  the  great  doctrines  of  the  Faith, 
or  read  the  Bible,  or  go  to  church.  Say  to 
them  instead,  “  You  must  act  for  a  time  on 


PRUDENCE 


33 


the  belief  that  what  the  tradition  of  the  best 
men  has  handed  down  to  you,  and  the 
authority  of  those  best  qualified  to  know 
has  committed  to  you,  is  true.  It  is  not 
safe,  it  is  not  wise,  to  disregard  it,  and  in 
process  of  time  you  will  be  able  to  see  for 
yourselves  whether  you  submit  or  withhold 
the  acquiescence  of  your  conviction.” 

We  see  around  us  at  the  present  time  a 
perfect  sea  of  controversy  ;  there  is  nothing 
disquieting  in  that  fact  taken  by  itself.  The 
disturbing  element  is  this,  that  passion  is 
made  to  do  duty  for  proof,  and  denunciation 
for  argument,  and  things  are  not  decided  on 
their  merits.  Surely  Prudence  meets  us  here 
and  says,  Here  is  a  belief  which  is  held  by 
thousands  of  thinking  men  at  the  present 
day ;  it  has  been  held  by  thousands  of  think¬ 
ing  men  in  all  ages  of  the  Church.  Is  it 
likely  that  there  should  be  no  truth  in  it  ?  Is 
it  likely  that  there  should  have  been  a  con¬ 
spiracy  to  believe  what  a  child  could  point 
out  to  be  demonstrably  false?  Here  am  I, 
perhaps,  a  man  who  imperfectly  knows  one 
language,  with  no  insight  into  history,  with 
no  grasp  of  theology,  who  barely  knows  the 
meaning  of  the  terms  or  the  history  of  the 
controversy.  Is  it  likely  that  truth  will  lie 
altogether  and  entirely  on  my  side  ?  Here  is 
one  saying  that  on  the  summit  of  yonder  high 

4 


34 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


mountain  there  is  a  glorious  prospect  over 
sea  and  land,  with  all  the  beauties  of  heaven 
opening  out  before  the  wondering  eye.  And 
here  I  stand  in  the  fog  and  mist  at  the 
bottom  and  say,  “No,  there  can  be  no  pros¬ 
pect  up  there ;  it  is  impossible  that  you  can 
see  any.  I  denounce  you  as  a  fool  and  a 
fanatic.”  Does  not  prudence  say  rather, 
“  Listen  to  his  voice,  hearken  to  what  he 
says.  He  only  bids  you  ‘  come  and  see,’  when 
you  have  climbed  the  mountain,  when  you 
have  looked  over  the  distance  and  tried  to 
see  what  he  sees,  then  you  may  begin  to 
denounce  if  you  wish,  and  if  you  can.  Then 
there  will  be  time  enough  to  decry  sacra¬ 
mental  grace,  or  conversion,  or  Absolution,  or 
justification,  or  the  Bible,  or  the  Church.” 
Prudence  says,  ‘  only  the  fanatic  decries  what 
he  knows  nothing  of,  and  has  never  striven  to 
comprehend.’  Anything  whatever  which  has 
at  any  time  commanded  the  earnest  assent  of 
large  numbers  of  mankind,  even  if  it  be  the 
wild  superstition  of  the  heathen,  merits 
respectful  investigation  and  careful  study. 
Most  certainly  no  one  can  afford  to  neglect 
the  long  ages  of  unbroken  Christian  tradition, 
nor  dispose  of  with  an  epigram,  or  demolish 
with  a  sneer,  the  splendid  endowment  of  the 
ages  of  faith.  Christian  prudence  knows  that 
God  has  spoken  by  divers  portions  and  in 


PRUDENCE 


35 


divers  manners,  and  in  an  age  of  strife 
is  most  fearful  of  these  two  things,  first,  lest 
in  controversy  we  should  forget  the  all¬ 
essential  element  of  Christian  love,  and 
secondly,  lest  in  demolishing  a  controversial 
antagonist  we  he  found  haj^ly  fighting 
against  God. 

2.  But  it  is  rather  in  the  guidance  of  our 
moral  life  that  we  look  for  the  more  charac¬ 
teristic  exhibition  of  the  virtue  of  Prudence. 
I  suppose  we  all  of  us  have  been  struck  from 
time  to  time  with  the  extreme  stupidity  and 
folly  of  a  life  of  reckless  sin.  Here  is  a  man 
ruining  his  health  by  excess  in  drink ;  is  he 
happy  ?  Clearly  not.  Does  he  know  that  he 
is  killing  himself  by  inches  ?  Presumably. 
Then  why  does  he  do  it  ?  He  says  he  cannot 
help  it.  Here  is  a  man  made  in  the  image 
and  likeness  of  God  leading  a  life  lower 
than  any  beast  that  perishes.  Does  he  know 
that  the  purer  qualities  of  his  intellect  are 
being  impaired?  He  cannot  fail  to  do  so. 
Does  he  see  that  light  and  beauty  have  died 
out  of  the  world  for  him,  and  that,  like  Solo¬ 
mon,  his  sun  is  setting  in  a  moral  night? 
Alas  !  it  is  too  obvious  that  he  was  not  meant 
to  satisfy  himself  with  the  husks  of  swine. 
Here  is  one  plunging  into  a  course  of  gam¬ 
bling,  with  a  restless  intoxication,  waiting  for 
the  chance  which  is  to  make  his  fortune,  and 


36 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


the  clever  stroke  which  is  to  save  him  from 
ruin.  Does  he  know  that  these  never  come  ? 
Does  he  know  that  the  whole  history  of  such 
transactions  is  against  him  ?  He  cannot  fail 
to  do  so.  But  he  is  blind,  and  cannot  see  afar 
off.  Perhaps  he,  too,  says  he  cannot  help 
himself,  as  he  struggles  in  the  net  laid  privily 
for  him,  and  entangles  himself  the  tighter  by 
the  agony  of  his  struggles.  Wise  men  mourn 
over  the  follies  of  youth,  cynics  smile  at  them, 
the  good  try  to  save  them  from  their  conse¬ 
quences.  But  in  those  who  wait  upon  God 
and  seek  for  His  guidance,  who  are  resolute 
and  earnest  in  dealing  with  themselves,  there 
is  formed  that  virtue  of  Prudence  which  saves 
the  blunder  and  wards  off  the  fault,  which 
helps  a  man  to  value  men  and  things  aright, 
to  know  his  own  weakness  and  his  own 
strength,  to  know  what  he  can  do  and  what 
he  must  avoid.  Prudence  as  a  moral  guide 
within  the  soul  sets  up  the  inestimable 
strength  of  principle. 

The  man  of  principle  who  not  only  knows 
what  to  do,  but  why  he  does  it,  is  saved  from 
countless  follies  and  blunders,  which  lead 
through  sin  to  loss  and  spiritual  suffering. 
A  man  of  principle  can  be  trusted  to  hold 
his  own  even  in  the  most  adverse  sur¬ 
roundings,  a  man  who  is  deficient  in  this 
saving  virtue  can  be  trusted  nowhere. 


PRUDENCE 


37 


Joseph,  because  he  had  principle,  was  safe  in 
all  the  seductive  dangers  of  an  Egyptian 
palace ;  Judas,  because  he  failed  in  this 
respect,  was  lost  under  the  very  eye  and 
guidance  of  Christ.  Let  us  make  up  our 
minds,  brethren,  once  for  all,  that  we  cannot 
hope  to  pass  unscathed  through  the  world 
without  it.  Prudence  says  to  you,  you  must 
settle  definitely  with  yourself  how  much 
attention  you  are  going  to  pay  to  “  what 
people  say.”  If  a  thing  is  wrong  in  the 
country,  it  won’t  be  right  in  London  ;  if  a 
thing  is  wrong  at  home  in  the  society  of  your 
mother  and  sisters,  it  won’t  be  right  when 
you  come  to  business.  If  it  is  wrong  to 
condemn  Christ,  the  fact  that  Tiberius 
threatens  to  banish  you  will  not  make  it 
right.  If  you  believed  that  Jesus  has  opened 
your  eyes,  it  cannot  be  right  to  deny  His 
claims  upon  you,  because  not  to  do  so  may 
involve  social  or  religious  martyrdom.  If 
you  believe  in  the  truth  of  a  doctrine,  no 
amount  of  popular  clamour  will  make  it 
untrue,  and  what  a  poor  thing  popular 
clamour  is  after  all.  Remember  that  four 
of  the  things  which  popular  clamour  de¬ 
nounced  in  London  in  our  Churches  forty 
years  ago  were  the  weekly  offertory,  turning 
to  the  East  at  the  Creed,  the  use  of  the  sur¬ 
plice  in  the  pulpit,  and  singing  the  responses 


38 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


to  the  Commandments.  Respect  for  popular 
clamour  is  a  very  poor  substitute  for  principle. 

Prudence  says  to  you  again,  you  must  make 
up  your  mind  as  to  your  attitude  towards 
religion.  Do  you  take  Jesus  Christ  for  your 
guide,  or  are  you  going  to  listen  to  whatever 
happens  to  be  in  vogue  at  the  time?  If  Jesus 
Christ  is  to  be  your  guide,  then  He  must  be 
followed  utterly.  He  brooks  no  rival.  He 
has  a  system  of  help  devised  for  you,  from 
your  cradle  to  your  grave.  He  tells  you  that 
He  demands  absolute  obedience  to  all  things 
which  He  has  commanded  you,  that  He  is 
your  Shepherd,  your  King,  your  Priest,  your 
Prophet,  your  Saviour,  and  your  God.  To 
follow  Him  on  principle  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  following  Him  when  there  is 
nothing  to  interfere  with  His  command¬ 
ments.  His  followers  bear  the  Cross,  they 
are  sometimes  hated  of  all  men,  they  are 
gibbeted,  persecuted,  martyred,  but  they 
reign  with  Him  in  glory.  We,  all  of  us, 
admire  this  splendid  building  in  which  we 
are  gathered  to  worship  God :  its  cross  towers 
above  the  city,  its  dome  rises  up  like  the 
mountain  of  God  above  its  traffic  and  its 
life.  Truly  a  magnificent  monument  to  en¬ 
shrine  the  name  of  any  man  !  But  remember 
that  S.  Paul  was  stricken  to  death  in  the 
capital  city  of  the  ancient  world,  as  a  male- 


PRUDENCE 


39 


factor  and  an  enemy  of  mankind,  because  his 
principles  refused  to  allow  him  to  deny  Christ. 

Prudence  asks  you  once  more  what  attitude 
are  you  going  to  take  towards  all  the  passions 
and  desires  which  will  clamour  to  be  satisfied  ? 
The  youth  entering  on  life  is  like  the  tourist 
who  lands  on  some  foreign  shore,  who  is 
met  by  touts  of  all  kinds,  all  proffering  help, 
all  ready  with  advice,  all  seeking  his  patron¬ 
age,  and  all  demanding  pay.  The  prudent 
tourist  knows  what  he  wants  and  where  he 
is  going,  the  ignorant  and  unwary  fall  a  prey 
to  their  extortions.  Is  every  wish  to  be 
gratified,  if  we  have  the  means  to  do  so  ?  Is 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  to  be  our  aim,  or 
the  pursuit  of  duty?  Is  sin  a  real  danger, 
or  only  a  theological  bugbear?  Is  the  flesh 
only  an  ugly  name  given  by  ascetics  to 
human  nature?  Is  the  world  only  an  ill- 
natured  nickname  for  that  which  is  opposed 
to  ecclesiastical  narrowness?  Is  the  devil 
any  more  than  the  hero  of  fairy  legend  or 
the  creation  of  monkish  fancy  ?  Of  all  these 
things,  Prudence  says,  deliberate  cognisance 
must  be  taken,  and  the  soul  must  form 
principles,  otherwise  to  drift  on  the  smooth 
surface  of  this  deadly  current  can  have  but 
one  ending  when  the  waters  gather  into  the 
awful  leap  upon  destruction,  whose  roar 
re-echoes  through  the  records  of  history, 


40 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


and  whose  froth  and  foam  beat  upon  the 
face  of  the  sinner,  borne  on  the  wings  of 
mournful  foreboding,  and  in  the  premonitions 
of  approaching  doom. 

Piinciple  is  the  saving  of  a  man  who  has 
listened  to  the  voice  of  Prudence,  and  there 
are  several  things  which  Prudence  uses  to 
strengthen  principle  as  a  policy  of  life. 

There  is  conscience,  for  instance,  which 
unless  it  has  been  impaired,  or  kept  unin¬ 
structed,  or  otherwise  neglected,  acts  as  a 
constant  guard  in  maintaining  the  integrity 
of  principle.  A  man  who  lives  on  principle 
brings  everything  before  the  bar  of  conscience 
and  acts  in  accordance  with  the  direction  of 
that  heaven-sent  monitor ;  and  just  as  pain 
has  its  distinct  uses  in  warning  a  man  of 
the  approach  of  evil  against  which  he  may 
take  precautions  and  provision,  so  the 
conscience,  with  its  sensitive  smart,  warns 
at  the  approach  of  evil  the  heart  which  might 
otherwise  become  injured.  “This  is  of  the 
world,  this  is  contrary  to  the  principles  of  a 
Christian ;  this  is  a  snare  of  the  flesh  which 
could  only  lead  to  the  break-up  of  the  dignity 
of  life ;  this  comes  from  the  malice  of  the 
Devil,  and  must  be  discarded  by  one  who  is 
an  heir  of  salvation.” 

And,  then,  besides  conscience  prudence 
points  out  the  advantage  of  direct  guidance 


PRUDENCE 


41 


such  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  world.  It  was 
designed  apparently  by  Almighty  God  that 
the  one  virtue  which  should  introduce  us  into 
the  fulness  of  life’s  blessings  should  be 
obedience.  When  parents  and  teachers  do 
their  duty,  the  child,  leaning  on  obedience, 
would  already  have  passed  through  some  of 
the  great  difficulties  of  life,  before  he  was 
left  to  fight  his  own  battles  and  meet  his  own 
enemies. 

Advice,  it  is  true,  has  a  bad  name,  because 
so  many  destroy  the  influence  of  what  they 
say  by  the  contradiction  of  what  they  do. 
Men  expect  from  their  advisers  more  than  a 
sign- post,  which  is  rooted  in  the  ground,  and 
only  points  to  the  right  way,  without  entering 
upon  it.  “  Do  as  I  say  ”  is  not  nearly  so  potent 
an  influence  as  “  Do  as  I  do.” 

But  still  we  may  lament  the  folly  of  an  age 
which  is  bent  on  buying  for  itself  always  and 
in  every  case  the  experience  which  it  might 
very  well  have  borrowed. 

Why  is  it  that  the  syrens  of  pleasure  have 
still  such  power  to  lure  generation  after 
generation  to  the  islands  of  destruction, 
where  the  whitening  bones  of  victims  still 
proclaim  that  the  end  of  those  things  is 
death  ?  Why  does  the  youthful  driver  of 
the  chariot  of  the  sun  still  plunge,  in  spite 
of  his  father’s  warnings  that  he  cannot  control 


42 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


those  fiery  steeds  by  his  own  strength,  and 
burn,  and  waste  and  destroy  in  a  life  of 
dissipation  and  ruin  ?  Prudence  says  with 
no  uncertain  voice,  “Pools  despise  wisdom 
and  instruction.”  It  is  not  the  wise  man, 
after  all,  who  neglects  advice  and  disdains  to 
use  it,  and  contempt  of  instruction  is  not  a 
sign  of  healthy  independence,  but  of  folly. 
Every  one,  for  instance,  is  the  better  for 
listening  to  good  public  opinion  whether  it 
comes  to  us  in  the  common  tradition  of  man¬ 
kind  or  in  the  social  maxims,  the  refinements, 
the  restraints,  the  rules  which  form  the  un¬ 
written  code  which  govern  public  conduct. 
Think  only  of  those  maxims  of  prudence 
known  as  proverbs,  “  the  wisdom  of  many 
and  the  wit  of  one,”  as  they  have  been  called. 
Here  are  certain  maxims  of  collected  ex¬ 
periences  which  a  prudent  man  will  take  as 
the  very  axioms  of  moral  action.  “Though 
hand  join  in  hand  the  wicked  shall  not  be 
unpunished  is  the  united  voice  of  all  genera¬ 
tions  of  men  protesting  against  the  hap¬ 
hazard  folly  of  the  man  who  thinks  that  in 
his  case  there  is  going  to  be  an  exception, 
that  he  can  sin  and  return  again  to  the 
position  in  which  he  was  before,  and  take 
up  life  just  as  he  left  it,  that  Divine  wrath 
has  somehow  been  swallowed  up  in  mercy, 
and  that  the  sinner,  like  a  spoiled  child,  can 


PRUDENCE 


43 


coax  a  yielding  father  into  the  relaxation  of 
penalties  and  the  abrogation  of  justice.  In 
vain  for  him  has  the  consciousness  of  the 
ancient  world  armed  Nemesis  with  its  hands 
of  iron,  albeit  her  feet  are  of  lead  ;  in  vain 
for  him  have  the  great  poets  weaved  their 
splendid  conception  of  unerring  retribution, 
pursuing  the  sinner  with  red-handed 
vengeance,  until  he  wakes  up  to  find  that 
not  even  a  mistake  is  passed  over  without  its 
necessary  consequence  in  the  great  scheme 
of  God’s  justice,  that  not  even  a  David, 
penitent  and  forgiven,  can  obtain  the 
sheathing  of  the  sword,  which  is  never  again 
to  depart  from  his  house,  that  not  even  the 
Son  of  God  can  afford  to  cast  Himself  down, 
trusting  in  angels  who  wait  upon  obedience 
but  disdain  presumption. 

Here  is  a  man  who,  knowing  the  universal 
testimony  of  experience  that  dishonesty 
defeats  its  own  ends,  is  yet  risking  it  in  his 
own  case,  confident  in  the  exception  that  is 
to  be  made  in  his  favour.  Here  is  the  man 
doing  the  minimum  of  evil  to  ensure  the 
maximum  of  good  ;  it  is  in  a  righteous  cause, 
and  evil  is  robbed  of  its  malignity,  and  truth 
abounds  by  his  lie.  And  all  too  late  he  wakes 
up  to  find  that  the  world  was  right  and  he 
was  wrong ;  dishonesty  always  trips  itself  up 
in  the  end,  and  the  moral  lie  has  a  power  to 


44 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


shatter  the  truth  which  is  enwrap}3ed  in  it 
with  a  startling  and  surprising  force. 

Deride  the  eccentricities  of  fashion  as  we 
may,  decry  the  hollowness  of  social  etiquette, 
and  the  fickleness  of  public  opinion,  still  in 
the  higher  social  standard,  in  the  verdict  of 
propriety,  in  the  conventional  standards 
which  govern  conduct,  a  prudent  man  will 
be  conscious  of  a  support  which  he  would  be 
unwise  to  discard.  The  desire  not  to  fall 
below  the  ordinary  level  of  respectability,  the 
determination  not  to  outrage  in  any  way 
public  opinion  may  be  but  a  slender  and 
superficial  support  on  which  to  base  a  man’s 
integrity,  but  for  all  that  to  learn  to  respect 
barriers,  to  put  our  shoes  from  off  our  feet 
in  the  presence  of  mysteries,  to  recognise  the 
outer  safeguards  of  inward  truth  are  all 
things  which  a  prudent  man  will  thankfully 
accept.  For,  after  all,  a  man  is  one  step 
further  removed  from  the  dangers  of  licence 
who  besides  the  inner  restraints  of  his  own 
will  is  also  kept  back  by  the  outward  barriers 
of  good  custom  from  situations  of  danger  and 
difficulty.  Good  advice,  however  it  conies, 
directly  or  indirectly,  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
neglected  by  a  prudent  man. 

And  here  I  would  venture  to  put  in  a  word 
for  sermons.  There  are  not  wanting  signs 
that  a  reaction  is  setting  in  against  sermons. 


PRUDENCE 


45 


Only  a  few  years  ago  it  might  have  been  said 
without  fear  of  contradiction  that  there  were 
three  things  which  English  people  firmly 
believed  in,  viz.,  Sunday,  the  Bible,  and 
hearing  sermons.  They  are  fast  beginning 
to  disbelieve  in  all  three.  In  most  churches 
when  the  sermon  is  commenced — at  all  events 
in  towns — there  is  a  steady  movement  towards 
the  door,  not  of  invalids,  or  of  very  busy 
people,  or  of  learned  men  who  gain  their 
knowledge  elsewhere,  but  of  young  people 
who  simply  dislike  the  fatigue  of  listening, 
of  those  who  are  quite  uninstructed  in  the 
faith,  and  miss  their  weekly  lesson. 

Remember  children  are  being  less  and 
less  taught  religion  at  school,  when  called 
upon  to  hear  sermons  they  rebel ;  they  read 
little  or  no  doctrinal  or  spiritual  books. 
And  here,  again,  as  in  school,  so  in  church, 
a  blow  is  being  struck  at  religious  instruction. 
And  then  we  wonder  at  the  strange  letters 
which  are  written,  the  strange  speeches  which 
are  made,  the  ignorance  of  the  most  elemen¬ 
tary  truths  which  is  displayed.  Bad  as  the 
sermons  may  be,  dear  brethren,  you  may  take 
it  for  granted  that  they  are  at  least  as  good, 
and  as  profitable,  as  the  half-hour’s  gossip 
which  takes  their  place,  the  emptiness  of  the 
Sunday  display,  or  the  want  of  seriousness 
which  refuses  to  be  taught. 


46 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


3.  For  Prudence  is  not  concerned  merely 
in  keeping  us  out  of  mischief ;  Prudence  bids 
us  keep  our  eyes  open  to  get  what  is  truly 
good  and  noble  out  of  our  life  in  this  world. 
“  I  do  not  wonder  at  what  men  suffer,  but  I 
wonder  often  at  what  they  lose,”  says  Mr. 
Ruskin.  A  prudent  man  in  business  is  not 
merely  the  man  who  avoids  catastrophes,  but 
a  man  who  never  lets  opportunities  slip.  Can 
we  rest  quite  happy,  without  a  suspicion  that 
we  are  wrong,  when  we  see  people  eagerly 
pursuing  things  in  which  we  take  no  sort  of 
interest,  and  can  find  no  possible  source  of 
joy?  “What  can  induce  a  man  to  become  a 
missionary?  ”  We  say:  “Fancy  leaving  Lon¬ 
don,  leaving  England,  without  any  of  the  ex¬ 
citements  and  interests  of  life?  What  can 
influence  a  man  to  be  a  missionary  ? — Why, 
the  fact  that  he  has  found  in  religion  a  pearl 
of  great  price,  and  he  cannot  rest  until  he 
has  taught  others  where  they  can  find  the 
same,  because  he  has  learnt  the  secret  of  that 
in  which  true  greatness  exists,  namely,  in 
doing  good.  And  that  he  has  heard  the  voice 
of  God  saying  to  him,  ‘What  good  are  you 
doing  in  the  world  for  your  fellow-creatures  ? 
Is  one  single  person  the  better  because  you 
have  lived  ?  ’  And  vocation,  the  call  of  God, 
cries  to  him  to  go  out  and  carry  to  the 
Gentiles  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ. 


PRUDENCE 


47 


That  Bible  which  you  neglect  is  full  of 
treasures ;  is  it  prudent  to  neglect  it  ?  That 
Church  which  you  despise  is  full  of  strength 
and  comfort ;  is  it  wise  to  despise  it  ?  Life  is 
stored  for  you  with  blessings  and  oppor¬ 
tunities,  but  hedged  round  with  difficulty 
and  girded  with  pitfalls.  Pray  to  God  that 
He  will  give  you  Prudence.  Prudence  to  trust 
where  as  yet  you  cannot  see  your  way. 
Prudence  to  avoid  danger,  in  obedience  to  the 
warnings  which  are  given  you.  And  Prudence 
to  find  and  enjoy  the  spiritual  stores  which  so 
bountifully  enrich  your  life. 


Ill 

JUSTICE 


o 


49 


Ill 


JUSTICE 

A  Sermon  Preached  in  S.  Paul’s 
Cathedral  in  August,  1900. 

“  He  hath  shewed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good ;  and 
what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly, 
and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?  ” — 
Micah  vi.  8. 

There  is  one  great  virtue  whose  rugged 
magnificence  claims  almost  universal  homage 
even  from  those  who  are  conspicuously 
deficient  in  it  themselves,  and  that  is  J ustice. 
In  view  of  the  wide  possibilities  of  self- 
gratification,  in  view  of  the  treasures  which 
open  out  on  every  side,  temptingly  displayed 
within  his  grasp,  man  has  to  decide  early,  and 
he  has  to  decide  firmly,  and  he  has  to  abide 
by  his  decision.  What  is  my  right  to  these 
things  which  are  thus  displayed  all  around 
me  ?  Is  it  to  be  the  law  of  might,  to  snatch 
what  I  can,  and  where  I  can  ?  Is  it  to  be  the 

51 


52 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


calculating  cunning  of  a  Jacob,  which  will 
never  lose  an  opportunity  of  adding  to  his 
store  even  from  a  hungry  brother’s  reckless¬ 
ness,  or  a  blind  father’s  mistake  ?  Or  am  I  to 
safeguard  the  rights  of  others  as  I  would  my 
own  ?  To  recognise  that  even  if  I  could, 
there  are  certain  advantages  which  I  must 
not  take  of  another?  That  there  are  other 
people  in  the  world  besides  myself  whose 
rights  I  must  respect  and  whose  interests  I 
must  serve  ? 

A  man  who  has  once  endeavoured  to 
regulate  his  actions  in  accordance  with  the 
will  of  God,  has  no  doubt  as  to  which  of  these 
answers  he  ought  to  give.  There  is  set  up 
within  him  a  court  of  award  before  which 
every  opportunity  and  advantage  is  brought. 
He  governs  his  action,  that  is,  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  of  justice,  what  he  ought 
to  do  and  what  right  requires  ;  not  according 
to  principles  of  a  supposed  self-interest,  which 
ignores  the  claims  of  others,  and  reaches  out 
after  aggrandisement  over  the  trampled  form 
of  another’s  rights, 

Of  course,  up  to  a  certain  point  in  a  civilized 
community,  a  man  is  helped  in  carrying  out 
this  resolve  by  the  law  of  the  land,  which  is 
based  on  principles  of  justice.  The  laws 
which  protect  property  and  punish  stealing 
will  enforce  to  a  very  large  extent,  as  against 


JUSTICE 


53 


its  more  flagrant  violations,  this  law  of 
another’s  rights.  But  we  all  feel  that  Justice, 
as  a  virtue,  reaches  much  further  than  this 
into  the  inner  life,  that  it  is  a  principle  which 
does  much  more  than  keep  us  free  from  a 
collision  with  the  laws  which  safeguard 
property,  that  it  affects  our  inmost  relations 
with  our  neighbour — nay,  that  it  has  some¬ 
thing  to  do  with  our  attitude  towards  God 
Almighty  Himself. 


I. 

The  rights  of  others — it  is  not  such  an 
easy  thing,  after  all,  to  remember  always  that 
others  have  rights.  Look  at  the  greedy  child  i 
what  an  unpleasant  object  he  is ;  snatching 
and  seizing  here  and  there,  regardless  of  the 
cries  or  disappointment  of  others  too  weak  to 
resist  him.  Look  at  the  selfish  man !  He  is 
only  the  greedy  child  enlarged,  with  the 
crudities  and  absurdities  knocked  off  by 
the  ways  of  the  world,  justified  by  such 
maxims  of  prudence  as  make  it  easier  for  him 
to  get  his  own  way.  See  him  pushing  and 
elbowing  his  path,  with  only  one  great  ideal 
before  him,  how  most  to  amplify  his  little 
stock  of  good  things,  and  to  divert  to  his  own 


54 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


use  the  advantages,  the  prosperity,  and  happi¬ 
ness  of  all  who  come  across  his  path  ! 

The  rights  of  man — let  us  look  at  some  of 
them  which  are  safe-guarded  by  Justice. 

1.  First  of  all,  a  man  has  a  simple,  a  most 
elementary  right  to  his  own  property.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  laws  which 
govern  and  repress  dishonesty  are  sufficient 
to  ensure  this  elementary  right  as  against 
those  who  disregard  it. 

Here  is  a  man  who  fancies  that  he  should 
like  to  become  the  owner  of  something  which 
he  sees  in  a  shop  ;  perhaps  he  is  moved  by 
some  passing  whim,  perhaps  he  wishes  to 
make  money  out  of  it,  perhaps,  poor  creature, 
he  is  driven  to  desperation  by  the  pangs  of 
hunger.  He  watches  his  opportunity,  he 
appropriates  the  property,  and  finds  himself 
convicted  as  a  thief  in  the  strong  clutches  of 
outraged  law.  But  here  is  a  man,  well 
dressed,  and  well  supplied  with  the  necessaries 
of  life,  moved  by  no  unbearable  pangs  of 
hunger,  who  passes  the  same  shop,  is  moved 
with  the  same  desire  of  acquiring,  and  he, 
instead  of  stealing  the  article,  goes  in  and 
buys  it,  but  does  not  pay  for  it,  knowing  that 
he  cannot  pay  for  it  then,  and,  perhaps,  will 
have  some  difficulty  in  paying  for  it  at  all. 
In  the  sight  of  God  he  virtually  has  stolen 
those  goods,  although  no  magistrate  condemns 


JUSTICE 


55 


him,  and  no  penalty  follows  on  his  actions. 
My  brethren,  in  view  of  the  great  virtue  of 
Justice,  have  you  considered  the  great 
question  of  the  morality  of  running  into  debt? 
There  are  many  and  pressing  needs  waiting  to 
be  met,  the  poor,  the  fatherless,  the  widow, 
the  outcast,  the  sick — they  get  none  of  your 
money.  You  cannot  afford  it.  Why?  Because 
it  is  wasted  on  that  monster,  self.  Still  you 
must  have  more  and  still  more ;  you  are 
afraid  to  steal,  and  therefore  you  run  into 
debt  that  you  may  satiate  this  craving  to 
possess.  And  people  who  can  ill  afford  it  are 
deprived  of  their  means  of  livelihood  while 
you  hold  what  is  really  their  property.  They 
wait  for  your  convenience,  still  they  wait,  and 
at  last  perhaps  they  see  him  who  holds  their 
property  sail  off  a  dishonest  bankrupt,  who 
pays  the  miserable  pittance  which  is  extracted 
from  him,  having  thieved  the  rest.  Ah,  my 
brethen,  it  is  a  sad  cry  which  we  hear  in  our 
streets  day  by  day,  the  petty  record  of  some 
trumpery  race  ;  because  for  every  one  of  those 
races  young  men  here,  and  young  men  there., 
have  been  guilty  of  the  thieving  of  betting, 
for  so  it  is ;  either  thereby  they  rob  another 
of  his  money,  which  he  has  no  right  to  waste 
on  such  follies,  however  willingly  he  does  it, 
or  rob  away  their  own  or  their  parents’ 
money  from  the  solid  and  serious  issues  of 


56 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


life,  to  squander  it  on  one  of  the  most 
degrading  passions  which  can  take  possession 
of  a  man’s  heart.  And  thieving  begets 
thieving.  There  comes  a  time  when  this  man 
thinks  he  can  be  honourable  by  doing  a 
dishonourable  action.  Like  the  dishonest 
customer,  he  borrows  without  leave,  intending 
to  pay,  and  one  more  coil  of  perdition  is 
wound  round  his  unhappy  life. 

Man  has  a  right  to  his  own  property,  and 
anything  which,  however  remotely,  interferes 
with  that  right,  whether  we  steal,  or  whether 
we  buy  without  payment  or  borrow  without 
leave,  or  misapply  from  its  proper  purpose,  is 
a  blow  struck  at  justice. 

2.  And  if  man  has  a  right  to  his  property, 
much  more  has  he  a  right  to  his  life. 

It  is  strange  how  long  the  system  of  slavery 
lingered  on  with  its  systematic  disregard  of 
the  most  elementary  rights  of  man.  Not 
content  with  seizing  what  a  man  possessed, 
men  seized  also  his  powers  of  acquiring 
possessions,  his  productive  energies  and  re¬ 
sources,  so  that  another  might  enjoy  a 
manifold  share  in  this  world  far  wider 
than  he  could  otherwise  have  attained  to. 
The  slave  as  the  living  machine,  without  rights 
and  without  recognition,  remains  as  one  of 
the  most  gigantic  monuments  of  the  perver¬ 
sion  of  the  idea  of  justice  in  the  minds  of 


JUSTICE 


57 


those  who,  on  the  whole,  loved  justice  and 
conceived  themselves  to  be  just. 

And  we  must  remember,  dear  brethren,  that 
slavery  still  exists  even  in  the  most  free 
countries. 

There  are  those  who  are  enslaved  by  the 
advancing  tide  of  luxury,  which  demands 
more  and  more  ministers  to  its  selfish  enjoy¬ 
ment.  Men  and  women  crowded  together 
without  decent  accommodation,  forced  to  live 
close  to  those  to  whose  luxuries  they  minister, 
men  and  women  who  toil  day  and  night  to 
make  luxuries  cheaper  and  ever  cheaper,  for 
those  who  insist  on  having  more  and  more  of 
them,  and  paying  less  and  less  for  their  enjoy¬ 
ments,  who  are  dressed  in  finery  which 
represents  the  lives  of  men,  and  eat  and  drink 
the  good  things  which  have  been  purchased 
from  barely  remunerated  labour.  There  is 
the  slavery,  again,  which  lives  on  the  sin  and 
degradation  of  others,  one  of  the  most 
appalling  spectacles  of  modern  civilisation, — 
men  who  profess  to  believe  in  Christ,  or  who 
at  least  live  in  a  Christian  land,  openly  de¬ 
spising  and  degrading  souls  for  whom  Christ 
died.  There  is  nothing  to  compare  in  awful 
malignity  to  the  sin  of  those  who  think  to 
make  life  more  full  of  guilty  intoxication  by 
compassing  the  ruin  of  another’s  soul.  No 
more  fearful  denunciation  runs  through  the 


58 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


pages  of  the  Bible  than  this : — “Woe  unto  the 
world  because  of  offences !  for  it  must  needs 
be  that  offences  come :  but  woe  to  that 
man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh  !  It  were 
better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged 
about  his  neck,  and  he  cast  into  the  sea,  than 
that  he  should  offend  one  of  these  little  ones.” 
O  awful  cry  ringing  through  the  realms  of 
hell — *(  i  should  not  have  come  here  but  for 
thee.”  To  deprive  another  of  his  soul’s  life 
through  sin  is  to  insult  the  love  of  God, 
it  is  to  outrage  the  majesty  of  His  Divine 
Justice. 

3.  If  a  man  has  a  right  to  his  life,  he  has 
also  a  right  to  that  which  makes  for  happiness 
in  life.  How  very  little  we  think  in  our 
ordinary  conversation  of  the  value  to  our 
neighbour  of  his  reputation,  his  character,  or 
his  position.  The  smallest  caprice  is  looked 
upon  as  sufficient  to  justify  the  sarcastic  cut, 
the  cynical  stab,  the  damaging  suggestion 
which  demolishes,  to  our  satisfaction,  our 
neighbour’s  too  exuberant  life. 

“Do  to  all  men  as  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  unto  you”  is  a  precept  of  Justice 
which  we  need  to  remember  constantly  in 
conversation  and  behaviour;  a  mere  passing 
unreasonable  dislike,  an  unworthy  suspicion, 
or  a  base  jealousy,  are  not  reasons  which  can 
ever  justify  a  man  in  depriving  another  of 


JUSTICE 


59 


that  which  is  his  due  in  courtesy  and  respect. 
Gossip,  scandal,  whispering  are  not  condoned 
in  the  sight  of  the  Eternal  Justice,  because 
they  are  witty  and  brighten  conversation, 
because  they  are  startling  and  help  to  sell  a 
newspaper  or  because  they  are  damaging  and 
help  to  render  more  obnoxious  an  unpopular 
cause.  In  times  of  religious  and  political 
controversy  it  is  doubly  necessary  to  remem¬ 
ber  that  the  great  cause  of  truth  can  never 
be  served  by  depriving  your  adversary  of  that 
which  is  his  due  in  fairness  and  sincerity.  It 
is  not  a  little  disquieting  to  see  how  very  little 
religious  controversy  has  succeeded  in  purify¬ 
ing  its  methods  all  through  the  long  years 
of  miserable  strife  which  has  disgraced 
Christianity  and  belied  the  principles  of  those 
who  call  themselves  Christians.  Three  cen¬ 
turies  ago  a  man  burned  his  adversary  to 
death,  if  so  be  that  he  could  bring  it  about, 
deprived  him,  that  is,  of  his  right  to  live.  All 
this  long  lapse  of  time  has  not  availed  to 
teach  us  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  his  reputa¬ 
tion,  which  is  to  him  as  his  life,  even  if  we 
disagree  with  his  opinions,  or  believe  him  to 
be  mistaken.  One  of  the  saddest  things  to 
see  at  the  present  day  is  the  attempt,  in  the 
miserable  exigencies  of  partisan  strife,  to 
blacken  the  name  and  tarnish  the  fame  of 
those  who  have  been  honoured  and  respected 


60 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


in  their  lives  as  good  and  sincere  men.  It  is 
possible  to  inflict  pain  and  wounds  by  so 
doing,  but  the  price  is  a  heavy  one.  The 
world  is  so  much  the  poorer  for  every  good 
man  who  is  proved  to  be  insincere ;  it  is  the 
baser  for  every  high  name  which  is  dragged 
down  from  its  honourable  pedestal,  and  the 
cause  of  progress  and  of  truth  is  damaged  by 
another  so-called  proof  of  flagrant  hypocrisy. 
It  is  as  when  a  merciless  general  in  the  bitter¬ 
ness  of  warfare  sets  himself  to  punish  a  town 
by  burning  down  its  library,  its  hospital,  its 
cathedral ;  it  is  brutal  warfare  at  the  best, 
and  it  leaves  the  world  with  a  black  scar  upon 
some  of  its  most  cherished  possessions.  The 
enemy  is  humbled,  but  the  real  sufferer  is 
humanity.  My  brethren,  we  do  not  need  to 
poison  wells,  nor  war  with  the  dead,  nor  seek 
to  damage  honoured  names,  in  order  to  win 
the  victory  of  orthodoxy.  Give  every  man 
his  due,  even  those  who  seem  to  be  most 
opposed  to  you  ;  you  will  stand  side  by  side 
at  the  judgment  bar,  side  by  side  you  will 
plead  for  His  infinite  pity,  and  claim  the 
merits  of  His  great  sacrifice.  We  want 
justice  in  the  daily  dealings  of  our  life,  justice 
in  all  the  relations  which  link  us  to  our 
neighbour,  justice  in  those  matters  where, 
without  knowing  it,  we  may  be  tempted  to 
be  unfair. 


JUSTICE 


61 


And  there  is  everything  to  hope  from  the 
fact  that  the  Bishop  of  this  diocese  has  sum¬ 
moned  certain  representative  men  in  the 
religious  world  to  meet  together  in  conference 
in  the  autumn,  to  see  whether  something  can¬ 
not  be  done  to  restore  mutual  respect,  to 
purify  controversy,  to  abate  religious  bitter¬ 
ness,  and  disperse  party  prejudice.  “Sirs, 
ye  are  brethren ;  why  do  ye  wrong  one  to 
another  ?  ” 

II. 

But  if  Justice  is  the  virtue  which  bids  us 
do  that  which  right  requires  in  our  dealings 
with  our  fellow-men,  Christianity,  in  the 
higher  light  which  she  has  thrown  upon  these 
virtues,  has  felt  that  even  more  Justice  is  the 
virtue  which  bids  us  do  what  is  right  in  our 
dealings  with  God.  Every  Christian,  who 
thinks  at  all,  feels  that  God  has  a  right  to  the 
service  and  obedience  of  His  creatures.  We 
have  been  taught  in  our  Catechism  to  believe 
in  God  Who  made  us  and  all  the  world,  in 
God  Who  redeemed  us  and  all  mankind,  and 
in  God  Who  sanctifies  us  and  all  the  elect 
people  of  God.  He  Who  made  me  has  rights 
over  me.  He  Who  bought  me  with  His 
precious  Blood  has  rights  over  me.  He  to 
Whom  I  owe  it  that  I  can  think,  speak,  and 
do  those  things  that  are  pleasing  in  His  sight, 
has  a  right  to  my  service. 


62 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


1.  My  brethren,  one  of  the  many  serious 
signs  of  the  times  is  the  apparent  want  of  the 
sense  of  responsibility  which  exists  in  so 
many  quarters.  Souls  wake  up  to  find  them¬ 
selves  in  the  possession  of  the  gift  of  life. 
They  see  all  around  them  a  crowd  pushing 
one  way,  struggling  for  existence,  for  posts  of 
honour,  striving  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry. 
They  are  sent  to  school ;  round  the  doors  they 
hear  the  hoarse  cries  of  those  demanding  that 
they  shall  not  be  taught  this  about  God  or 
that  about  religion — “  no  religion  at  all  rather 
than  give  an  advantage  to  the  Established 
Church.”  “No  religion  at  all  unless  shibboleth 
is  pronounced  with  absolutely  faultless  accent 
according  to  the  prevailing  twang  of  that 
controversy  which  happens  to  be  in  vogue.” 
The  poor  child  knows  nothing  about  God,  and 
no  one  seems  to  care  about  religion,  except  to 
quarrel  as  to  its  terms.  He  enters  within  the 
walls  sacred  to  the  cause  of  education ;  he  is 
taught  to  get  on — to  push  and  cram  and 
struggle — until  he  is  able  to  take  his  place  in 
the  throng  outside;  and  then  once  more  he 
pushes  and  is  pushed  ;  he  is  robbed,  trampled 
on  ;  he  sits  down ;  he  gives  up  the  struggle  ; 
it  may  be  with  his  own  hand  he  cuts  off  that 
life  which  no  one  ever  taught  him  how  to 
cherish.  He  came  into  the  world  without 
being  consulted,  and  he  dies  undesired. 


JUSTICE 


63 


My  brethren,  Justice  demands  that  we 
should  cultivate  a  sense  of  responsibility. 
Have  you  heard  the  voice  of  God  calling  you 
into  the  place  which  you  occupy  in  life  ?  Do 
you  feel  that  you  are  here  in  obedience  to  a 
call?  That  you  have  a  work  to  do  which 
only  you  can  do,  and  for  which  you  are  kept 
alive  until  it  is  done.  Vocation,  not  ambition, 
is  the  true  key  to  life. 

There  are  certain  professions  the  entrance 
to  which  is  generally  recognised  to  be  through 
vocation,  that  is  to  say,  a  call  from  God. 
Such  is  pre-eminently  the  ministry  of  the 
Church  known  as  Holy  Orders.  This  call 
may  come  in  various  ways,  it  may  come 
suddenly  in  some  divine  impulse,  it  may  come 
gradually  in  the  shapening  of  circumstances 
all  tending  that  way,  in  the  wish  of  friends, 
the  disposition  of  tastes,  the  sudden  arrest  of 
interest  by  a  story  of  heroism  in  the  mission 
field,  a  sense  of  the  needs  of  the  Church  or  a 
desire  to  do  good.  It  is  possible  that  I  may 
be  speaking  to  some  young  men  to-day  who 
have  heard  God’s  voice,  as  Samuel  heard  it  in 
the  still  night,  and  scarcely  know  what  it 
means.  To  them  God  is  calling  and  speaking, 
and  asks  for  a  recognition  of  His  claims  to 
their  love  and  service. 

My  brethren,  it  is  a  sad  illustration  of  what 
I  have  been  saying,  that  in  the  profession 


64 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


which  is  pre-eminently  entered  into  in  a  sense 
of  Divine  responsibility  and  Divine  call,  fewer 
and  fewer  seem  to  be  responding  to  it.  Look 
at  our  public  schools.  Three  or  four  at  the 
most  are  leaving  one  of  the  greatest  of  them 
with  this  profession  in  view.  Look  at  our 
universities,  fewer  and  fewer  are  shaping 
their  training  in  this  way.  It  is  not  the 
poverty  of  the  profession,  it  is  not  the 
wretched  party  strife,  and  the  sordid  nature 
of  the  conflict  waged  against  the  Church. 
The  cause  is  deeper,  the  sense  of  responsibility 
is  weakened  in  men’s  hearts.  After  all,  Holy 
Orders  is  not  the  only  profession  the  entrance 
to  which  is  through  vocation.  Life  itself  is, 
or  should  be,  as  I  have  said,  carried  out  in 
obedience  to  vocation.  My  brethren,  are  you 
giving  Cod  His  due  in  this  respect  ?  Are  you 
doing  anything  like  what  you  ought  for  the 
Great  Being  Who  sent  you  into  this  world, 
not  to  eat  and  drink  and  be  crammed  with 
useful  knowledge,  and  then  push  and  struggle 
again,  and  perhaps  die  exultant  because  you 
had  beaten  a  companion  in  the  competitive 
examinations  of  life,  and  stood  one  step 
higher  on  its  dizzy  ladder.  The  idea  is  wrong 
in  itself,  it  is  not  the  profession  but  the 
vocation  which  we  have  to  consider.  If  we 
have  got  God’s  call,  and  recognise  our  duty  to 
Him,  then  it  matters  not  where  we  work. 


JUSTICE 


65 


The  servant  of  God  will  glorify  a  cabin,  a 
man  who  forgets  God  will  degrade  a  palace. 

Cease,  dear  brethren,  the  mere  struggle  to 
get  on,  and  put  God  first.  Am  I  glorifying 
God  by  my  actions  in  honest,  serious  life, 
lived  as  in  His  sight  ?  Is  this  world  the  better 
because  I  am  alive  ?  Is  society  purer  because 
I  move  in  it  ?  Is  the  place  of  business  more 
worthy  because  I  am  there  ?  Justice  within 
my  heart  assigns  the  first  place  in  life  to  God 
Who  made  it. 

2.  If  God  has  a  right  to  my  ambition,  He 
has  a  right  to  my  activity.  Here  again  is  a 
sight  even  sadder  than  the  former — viz.,  the 
number  of  those  who  sit  idly  looking  on  as 
the  pushing,  anxious  stream  grinds  its  way 
past  them.  There  they  sit,  men  and  women, 
who  seem  to  have  lost  energy  for  everything 
and  to  have  missed  their  place  in  life.  “  My 
Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work/’  To  be 
idle  is  to  fail  in  one  of  those  marks  of 
resemblance  which  ought  to  distinguish  man 
made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God  as  the 
son  of  His  Heavenly  Father. 

Think  of  the  idleness  that  there  is  in  this 
huge  city  !  Think  of  the  hundreds  of  lives 
which  wake  up  morning  after  morning  to  do 
nothing,  to  lounge  in  the  parks  or  streets, 
to  read  novels  and  go  to  the  theatre  !  Think 
of  the  splendid  opportunities  that  are  being 

6 


66 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


thrown  away,  because  men  who  can  work 
will  not  do  it,  and  wear  away  their  capacities 
and  their  opportunities  in  the  lotus-eating  of 
so-called  pleasure  ;  while  all  the  time  there 
are  many  who  long  for  work  and  cannot  get 
it,  and  pine  away  broken-hearted  in  the 
strange  and  mysterious  allotment  of  life, 
which  gives  opportunities  to  those  who  refuse 
to  use  them,  and  seems  to  deny  them  to  those 
who  will.  Idleness  is  not  only  to  dissipate 
our  own  powers  or  rob  our  employers,  it  is  to 
cheat  God  of  His  due.  God  has  a  right  to  ask, 
when  He  gives  us  work  to  do,  that  we  should 
do  it  with  our  might.  There  are  evils  which 
come  with  idleness  which  mark  out  clearly 
the  bad  nature  of  a  cessation  from  work 
in  this  busy  world  of  God’s  creation,  weeds 
which  gather  on  the  stagnant  pool,  blight  and 
mildew  which  fasten  on  the  plant  shut  up  and 
untended. 

“  The  Devil  tempts  man,”  says  the  old 
proverb,  “an  idle  man  tempts  the  Devil.” 
Nothing  really  can  lie  idle  in  a  world  like 
this  ;  if  it  is  not  being  used  for  God,  it  is 
being  used  for  His  enemies.  “  I  went  by  the 
field  of  the  slothful,  and  by  the  vineyard  of 
the  man  void  of  understanding  ;  and,  lo,  it  was 
all  grown  over  with  thorns,  and  nettles  had 
covered  the  face  thereof,  and  the  stone  wall 
thereof  was  broken  down.  Then  I  saw,  and 


JUSTICE 


67 


considered  it  well;  I  looked  upon  it,  and  re¬ 
ceived  instruction.  Yet  a  little  sleep,  a  little 
slumber,  a  little  folding  of  the  hands  to 
sleep ;  so  shall  thy  poverty  come  as  one  that 
travelleth ;  and  thy  want  as  an  armed  man.”  1 
To  all,  whether  early  in  the  morning  or  at 
midday,  or  even  at  the  eleventh  hour,  the 
voice  of  God  speaks  to  our  slumbering  sense 
of  Justice,  and  says  :  “Why  stand  ye  here  all 
the  day  idle  ?  ”  “  Go  ye  also  into  the  vineyard, 
and  whatsoever  is  right  that  shall  ye  receive.” 

3.  But  God  has  a  right  also  to  our  homage 
and  worship.  This  we  offer  to  no  one  else  ; 
but  Justice  demands  that  we  should  offer  it 
to  Him.  Do  we  realise  that  God  has  a  right 
to  our  prayers  and  praises  and  our  worship  ? 
It  is  not  a  question  of  our  inclination,  but  of 
God’s  due,  whether  or  not  we  say  our  prayers. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  our  own  whims  and 
fancy,  but  of  God’s  honour,  whether  or  not 
we  “  come  before  His  Presence  with  thanks¬ 
giving,  and  show  ourselves  glad  in  Him  with 
psalms.”  Clergy  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking 
of  the  Divine  service  which  they  offer  to  God, 
as  their  duty;  to  pay  God  due  and  proper 
worship  is  the  duty  of  the  layman  as  well.  Are 
we  in  any  danger  of  losing  our  sense  of  duty 
in  this  respect?  In  old  days,  not  so  far 
removed  from  the  present,  parents  used  to 


Prov.  xxiv.  30-84. 


68 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


say  to  their  children,  when  Sunday  came 
round,  ‘  My  children,  it  is  the  Lord’s  Day ;  it 
is  our  duty  to  go  to  church,’  and  whatever 
might  be  the  weather,  whatever  might  be  the 
inclination  of  the  child,  to  church  he  went, 
without  being  asked  whether  he  wished  to  go 
or  not,  simply  because  it  was  the  duty  of  all 
to  go.  Now  too  often  either  the  child  is  sent 
off  to  a  Sunday  school  to  be  out  of  the  way  at 
home,  and  be  taken  to  church  as  one  of  a  herd, 
or  sent  with  teacher  or  governess  as  a  task,  or 
even  he  is  consulted  as  to  whether  it  is  his 
inclination  to  go  or  not,  and  the  child  longs 
for  the  time  when  he  can  exercise  the  more 
untrammelled  right  of  his  elders  to  stay  at 
home  unquestioned  and  unrebuked.  He 
grows  up  to  think  that  religious  duties  must 
depend  largely  on  the  individual  tastes  and 
inclinations ;  that  on  some  days  a  journey 
into  the  country  will  be  more  elevating  to  his 
feelings,  or  attendance  at  a  concert,  or 
complete  rest  at  home,  or  the  study  of  poetry, 
or,  perhaps,  the  reading  of  a  sermon. 

Church-going,  regulated  by  inclination,  is 
the  natural  outcome  of  a  religious  life,  which 
has  ceased  to  govern  itself  by  duty,  and  to 
cause  inclination  to  submit  itself  to  a  sense  of 
what  is  right  and  fitting.  This  state  of  mind 
sooner  or  later  takes  the  almost  inevitable 
step  of  regulating  attendance  at  Divine 


JUSTICE 


69 


worship,  by  the  pleasure  or  satisfaction  to  be 
gained  by  it.  ‘  I  do  not  seem  to  gain  good  by 
going  ’  is  accepted  as  quite  a  sufficient  reason 
for  staying  away.  A  dislike  to  the  messenger 
who  holds  in  his  hands  the  Bread  of  Life  is 
quite  a  sufficient  reason  for  depriving  the 
soul  of  the  food  which  he  offers.  The  ser¬ 
mon,  the  singing,  the  ritual,  the  doctrine,  the 
reading — it  would  be  hard  not  to  be  able  to 
find  some  excellent  excuse  for  absenting  him¬ 
self  from  that  which  was  merely  designed  to 
elevate  the  individual,  to  quicken  his  aspira¬ 
tions,  and  purify  his  religious  tastes.  How 
quickly  we  can  lose  sight  altogether  of  God’s 
due  in  the  matter  !  How  easy  it  is  to  forget 
that  we  do  not  come  to  church  mainly  to  get, 
but  to  give :  “  0  come  let  us  worship  and  fall 
down  and  kneel  before  the  Lord  our  Maker  ” 
— that  God  comes  first  and  that  we  come 
afterwards.  It  would  be  something  if  we 
determined  to  do  what  we  could  to  put  a  stop 
to  this  robbing  the  Lord  of  His  rights  to  the 
worship  of  His  creatures  now  so  prevalent. 
God,  who  gave  you  all  your  life,  has  a  right 
to  a  portion  of  your  time  as  well  as  a  portion 
of  your  hearts.  He  has  a  right  to  one  day  in 
seven,  which  He  claims  as  His  due.  He  has  a 
right  to  at  least  a  small  portion  of  your  time 
every  day  in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening. 
It  is  the  very  least  we  can  give  as  a  recogni- 


70 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


tion  of  Him  who  gives  us  all,  and  who  never 
yet  received  the  gifts  of  His  creatures  without 
returning  to  them  a  bountiful  interest  in  that 
which  enriches  life  and  happiness. 

My  brethren,  we  are  accustomed  to  hear 
from  some  of  our  Continental  neighbours  a 
great  deal  about  glory.  Glory  is  one  of  those 
crowns  of  merit  which  are  apt  to  flag  and 
wither  when  the  first  flush  of  renown  has 
passed  away.  There  is  a  deeper  and  more 
lasting  motive  than  the  desire  for  glory,  and 
that  is  the  sense  of  duty.  4 4  It  does  not  matter 
who  saved  Ladysmith,”  it  was  said,  44  as  long 
as  Ladysmith  was  saved.”  Duty — the  deter¬ 
mination  to  do  a  thing  because  it  is  right,  is 
the  outcome  of  this  great  virtue  Justice, 
which  sets  itself  to  give  to  every  one  that 
which  is  their  due.  Justice  is  one  of  the 
attributes  of  God  Himself  which  we  cherish 
and  revere.  We  know  that  neither  love  for 
our  human  nature,  nor  compassion  for  our 
weakness,  nor  anger  for  our  manifold  tres¬ 
passes,  will  ever  move  Him  from  the  justice 
tempered  with  mercy  wherewith  He  governs 
the  world.  This  has  been  our  stay  in  all  the 
alternations  of  hope  and  fear  which  have 
moved  us  as  to  the  fate  of  our  friends  in 
China.  We  still  wait  to  know  the  full  extent 
of  God’s  merciful  deliverance,  but  we  wait  in 
confident  trust  in  God’s  justice.  God  reigns. 


JUSTICE 


71 


“The  Lord  is  King,  be  the  people  never  so 
impatient.  He  sitteth  between  the  eherubims, 
be  the  earth  never  so  unquiet.”  And  we,  too, 
in  our  measure,  can  put  no  higher  standard  of 
action  before  ourselves  than  this,  which  our 
old  Church  Catechism  has  held  up  before 
generations  of  her  children  : — “  To  be  true 
and  just  in  all  my  dealing :  to  bear  no  malice 
nor  hatred  in  my  heart:  to  keep  my  hands 
from  picking  and  stealing,  and  my  tongue 
from  evil  speaking,  lying,  and  slandering,  .  .  . 
not  to  covet  nor  desire  other  men’s  goods ; 
but  to  learn  and  labour  truly  to  get  mine  own 
living,  and  to  do  my  duty  in  that  state  of  life, 
unto  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  me.” 


FORTITUDE 


IV 

FORTITUDE 

A  Sermon  Preached  in  S.  Paul’s 
Cathedral  in  August,  1900. 

“The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salvation;  whom  then 
shall  I  fear :  the  Lord  is  the  strength  of  my  life ;  of  whom 
then  shall  I  be  afraid  ?  ” — Psa.  xxvii.  1. 

We  have  seen  only  lately  in  this  city,  in  a 
spot  not  far  from  this  cathedral,  a  cloister  set 
aside  to  commemorate  deeds  of  heroism  and 
self-sacrifice,  that  the  names  of  those  who 
have  enriched  the  world  by  beautiful  examples 
of  courage  and  devotion  should  not  die. 

In  our  army  there  is  no  decoration  more 
coveted  than  the  little  bronze  cross,  with  its 
inscription  “  For  Valour,”  which  signalises  the 
possessor  as  one  who  displayed  bravery  in  the 
face  of  great  danger.  There  is  no  virtue  so 
popular,  so  sure  of  generous  applause,  as  that 
of  fortitude  displayed  in  acts  of  courage,  or  in 
quiet  uncomplaining  endurance  ;  there  is  no 

75 


76 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


one  so  despised,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the 
coward  who  shrinks  from  duty  in  craven 
fear,  and  betrays  the  succours  which  reason 
offers.  And  yet  we  are  apt  to  look  upon  this 
as  a  virtue  which  belongs  to  a  few,  to  those 
who  have  been  brought  face  to  face  with  a 
supreme  crisis,  and  have  gallantly  met  it, 
rather  than  as  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues 
which  are  necessary  always  and  for  every¬ 
body,  without  which  we  cannot  step  forward 
in  life,  or  reach  that  position  which  God 
designed  us  to  fulfil. 


I. 

As  Temperance  teaches  a  man  how  not  to 
touch,  as  Prudence  teaches  him  what  to  do 
and  what  to  avoid,  as  Justice  teaches  hin; 
what  to  allow  to  others,  so  Fortitude  stands 
before  him  to  correct  the  shrinking  from  hard 
things,  the  fear  of  opposition,  the  pain  of 
endurance,  ever  telling  him  that  “  no  man  is 
crowned  except  he  strive  lawfully,”  and  that 
“  he  that  shall  endure  unto  the  end  the  same 
shall  be  saved.” 

Let  us  pause  at  the  outset  to  correct  some 
of  our  ideas  of  Fortitude.  Here  is  no  virtue 
which  belongs  only  to  those  who  trade  in 
dangerous  callings,  such  as  the  soldier  and 


FORTITUDE 


77 


the  sailor,  this  is  not  merely  a  virtue  of  the 
battlefield,  but  a  virtue  which  finds  ample 
field  for  development  in  the  simplest  life. 
We  stop  to  admire  the  soldier  who  goes  back 
under  fire  to  rescue  a  wounded  comrade, 
placing  him  on  his  back,  bearing  him  safely, 
amidst  a  storm  of  bullets,  away  to  the 
ambulance  waggon  and  safety.  But  his 
courage  is  no  less  who,  with  scant  means  and 
feeble  health,  struggles  day  by  day  against 
the  assaults  of  poverty  and  weariness,  setting 
aside  self-indulgence,  or  any  thought  lower 
than  that  of  affection  and  duty,  that  out  of 
his  scanty  earnings  he  may  support  his  aged 
parents,  and  keep  together  the  little  home 
which  depends  on  his  resolute  self-sacrifice. 
Horatio  keeping  the  bridge  over  the  Tiber 
against  the  onrush  of  the  enemy  is  a  noble 
sight  :  one  man  confident  in  his  honour, 
cheered  by  all  the  traditions  of  his  country, 
and  proud  in  the  sense  of  joyous  strength. 
But  equally  brave,  equally  noble,  is  he,  that 
unknown,  despised  servant  of  God,  who  stands 
out,  one  against  a  host  of  evil,  who  sticks  up 
for  a  purer  tradition,  and  fights  alone  the 
battle  of  truth  and  honour,  with  overwhelm¬ 
ing  odds  against  him,  supported  only  by  a 
great  tradition,  and  by  a  sense  of  God’s  ever¬ 
present  help  :  the  moral  hero  who  stands  in  the 
breach  against  the  invading  onslaught  of  sin. 


78 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


We  honour  with  the  homage  of  a  grateful 
admiration  the  guide  who  takes  his  life  in  his 
hands  and  climbs  up  the  giddy  precipice, 
where  the  wind  grapples  with  him,  and  the 
snow  blinds  him,  and  the  slippery  rock  baffles 
his  upward  way,  in  order  to  rescue  the 
strangers  who  have  lost  their  way  in  the 
mountain  storm.  But  he  is  no  less  deserving 
of  our  highest  admiration,  his  courage  beats 
no  less  high,  his  endurance  is  no  less  noble, 
who  climbs  on  through  storms  of  obloquy  and 
failure,  now  stumbling,  now  falling,  in  order 
to  hold  out  the  rescuing  hand  to  some  young 
life,  which  is  likely  to  lose  its  way,  in  the 
storms  of  vice  which  sweep  over  a  great  city, 
and  fall  the  victim  to  evil  fashion,  and  perish 
in  the  ingulfing  torrents  of  vice.  The  heroism 
of  daily  life  is  just  as  real  as  the  heroism 
which  shines  so  brilliantly  in  fields  of  sudden 
stress  and  adventure.  There  are  many  on 
whose  breast  the  Recording  Angel  pins  the 
decoration  “  For  Valour,”  whose  names  are 
never  known,  and  whose  deeds  have  met 
with  no  chronicler. 

But  more  than  this,  as  I  would  venture  to 
put  before  you  to-day,  Fortitude  (courage) 
is  a  virtue  for  all,  necessary  always  and 
everywhere,  in  a  world  such  as  this,  amidst 
dangers  and  assaults  which  beset  every,  even 
the  most  sheltered  life,  and  even  minister 


FORTITUDE 


79 


to  its  perfection.  And  let  us  dismiss  at  once 
the  idea  that  courage  has  to  do  with  high 
spirits  and  bodily  strength,  that  to  be 
courageous  means  to  have  no  sense  of  danger, 
and  to  be  a  stranger  to  fear.  In  many  cases 
it  is  just  the  opposite.  There  are  some  people 
who  are  naturally  high-spirited,  who  are 
devoid  of  imagination  and  any  sense  of 
apprehension.  Danger  does  not  appeal  to 
them,  they  go  to  meet  it  without  any  sense 
of  heroism  or  flutter  of  alarm.  They  may  be 
envied  for  the  possession  of  a  natural  endow¬ 
ment,  but  they  do  not,  therefore,  stand  forth 
as  the  highest  examples  of  bravery.  There 
are  others  again  who  go  unmoved  to  meet 
the  most  extreme  perils,  simply  because  they 
are  ignorant  of  the  true  nature  of  the  danger, 
as  a  man  who  should  take  up  a  live  shell  and 
plunge  it  over  the  parapet,  not  knowing  that 
it  was  at  the  point  of  exploding.  He  again 
would  not  represent  the  highest  type  of 
bravery.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  man 
who  is  delicate,  even  weak,  apprehensive, 
nervous,  keenly  sensitive  of  danger,  and 
accurately  acquainted  with  the  full  extent 
of  the  peril  before  him,  who,  with  fear  in  his 
heart,  yet  goes  manfully  forward  and  carries 
out  with  a  resolute  sense  of  duty,  and  with  a 
stern  repression  of  self,  that  line  of  conduct 
which  has  been  pointed  out  to  him — to  him 


80 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


we  assign  the  meed  of  the  highest  bravery. 
He  knew  his  danger,  and  he  felt  it,  but,  strong 
in  the  sense  of  duty,  he  went  forward  in  the 
true  spirit  of  fortitude.  So  that  no  one  need 
flatter  himself  that  he  is  exempt  by  con¬ 
stitutional  defects  or  lack  of  opportunity 
from  the  exercise  of  this  great  virtue.  Nay 
more,  to  fail  in  it,  to  lose  heart,  to  lose 
courage,  to  shrink  from  the  battle,  to  give  up 
endurance,  to  step  out  of  rank,  is  to  fall  down 
and  die  in  the  conflict  of  life.  The  crown  of 
life  is  worth  a  struggle,  and  cannot  be  won 
without  it.  “  To  him  that  overcometh  will  I 
grant  to  sit  with  Me  in  My  throne,  even  as 
I  also  overcame,  and  am  set  down  with  My 
Father  in  His  throne.”  1 


II. 

If  a  man  starting  out  on  the  journey  of 
life  has  to  practice  rigorous  self-control  in 
view  of  all  that  meets  him  in  his  path  ;  if  he 
has  to  scan  long  and  anxiously  the  many  and 
various  intersecting  roads :  if  he  has  to  pause 
and  make  way,  now  here,  now  there,  for  his 
fellow  travellers  ;  so  he  cannot  go  far  without 
finding  his  powers  of  endurance  put  to  the 
severest  test,  under  the  stress  of  constant  and 


1  Rev.  iii.  21. 


FORTITUDE 


81 


gvgi  menacing  trials  which  are  sprung  upon 
him  from  the  most  unexpected  quarters.  One 
might  have  supposed  that  the  carefully 
nurtured  child,  the  well  -  disposed  boy,  the 
man  with  a  purpose  and  an  aim  in  life, 
conscious  of  integrity,  firm  in  principle, 
might  be  allowed  to  go  forward  unmolested. 
It  is  not  so.  4 4  Strait  is  the  gate,  and 
narrow  is  the  way  that  leadeth  unto  life.” 
44  My  son,  if  thou  come  to  serve  the  Lord, 
prepare  thy  soul  for  temptation,”  or  trial. 
Fortitude  (courage)  is  necessary  at  every 
stage  to  keep  a  man  up  amidst  the  strange 
unlooked-for  trials  which  beset  his  path. 

1.  First  of  all,  he  cannot  go  far  without 
finding  that  the  service  of  God  is  one  which 
will  try  him  to  the  very  depths  of  his  heart. 
God  has  in  His  good  providence  designed  for 
us  a  certain  character  which  He  wills  to  work 
out  in  us.  It  dawns  upon  us  that  God  can 
elevate  and  adorn  the  wayward  temperament, 
the  constituent  parts  of  our  life;  that  He 
wills  us  to  be  a  kind  of  first-fruits  of  His 
creatures.  We  see  the  wonderful  possibilities 
of  the  body,  its  strength,  its  vigour,  its  man¬ 
hood,  and  we  snatch  it  away  from  the  degra¬ 
dation  of  life  around  us  and  offer  it  to  God. 
We  see  the  wondrous  possibilities  of  mind,  all 
the  beauties  of  intellectual  power,  the  glories 
of  imaginative  art,  the  almost  unlimited 

7 


82 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


capabilities  of  reason,  and  we  snatch  away 
our  inner  life  from  the  degrading  frivolities 
of  the  world  and  offer  it  up  to  God.  While 
there  opens  up  to  us  through  the  spirit  fresh 
regions  of  beauty  and  love,  God  offers  to 
dwell  in  us,  and  we  in  Him,  and  we  seek  to 
know  Him  more  and  more  and  His  power. 

We  see  what  we  might  be,  and  we  press 
forward  towards  its  realisation.  And  then 
there  comes  the  call  of  God,  in  what  we  call 
vocation.  V^e  are  called  to  this  profession  01 
to  that,  some  to  minister  in  His  Church,  as 
the  stewards  of  His  Mysteries;  some  to 
minister  to  the  needs  of  men  in  the  beneficent 
and  noble  profession  of  medicine;  some  to 
other  learned  professions,  now  here  and  now 
there ;  some  are  called  to  be  the  defenders  of 
their  country,  and  to  maintain  its  honour, 
and  the  great  principles  of  national  and  inter¬ 
national  justice,  to  be  the  executors  of  Gods 
wrath,  the  instrument  of  His  discipline,  and 
to  maintain  the  right;  others  are  called  in 
this  department  of  business  and  in  that  to 
make  just  this  or  that  part  of  the  world 
better,  more  productive,  more  worthy  of  the 
Author  of  all  good  and  perfection.  And  then, 
when  the  call  has  been  recognised,  God  has 
chosen  the  circumstances.  He  has  placed  us 
here,  He  has  placed  us  there.  He  has  given 
us  this  or  that  measure  of  success,  He  has 


FORTITUDE 


83 


given  us  these  or  those  friends.  And  here, 
when  we  have  taken  God  as  our  friend, 
recognised  His  power,  obeyed  His  call,  accepted 
His  disposition  of  life  for  us,  what  more  do 
we  need  ?  “  I  have  set  God  always  before 

me.”  “The  Lord  is  on  my  side,  I  will  not  be 
afraid  what  man  can  do  unto  me  ” — where  is 
the  need  for  fortitude  in  the  life  hedged  round 
by  God  ?  My  brethren,  we  know,  and  we  know 
it  well,  that  it  is  just  on  those  lives  which 
God  has  accepted  that  there  fall  the  smart 
blows  of  discipline.  And  on  our  fortitude,  on 
our  endurance,  depends  the  full  perfection  of 
life  and  character  which  God  designs  us  to 
have.  Here  is  Abraham,  he  has  walked  with 
God,  shaping  his  footsteps  according  to  His 
loving  direction.  He  has  left  home  and 
kindred  in  obedience  to  the  Divine  call.  God 
has  given  him  a  son,  an  unexpected  treasure 
on  whom  centres  all  the  fulness  of  the  endow¬ 
ment  of  blessing  which  He  had  promised. 
And,  suddenly,  there  comes  the  voice,  “  Take 
now  thy  son,  thine  only  son  Isaac,  whom 
thou  lovest,  and  get  thee  into  the  land 
of  Moriah ;  offer  him  there  for  a  burnt- 
offering  upon  one  of  the  mountains  which 
I  will  tell  thee  of.”  1  Here  is  Joseph,  from  a 
child  giving  himself  up  to  God,  the  receiver  of 
His  revelation,  the  bearer  of  His  messages, 


1  Gen.  xxii.  2. 


84 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


firm  in  his  integrity  and  pure  in  life.  Yet  he 
finds  himself  in  the  pit,  he  finds  himself 
banished,  he  finds  his  prosperity  taken  away 
from  him ;  in  prison  and  neglect  God  has 
axDparently  left  him.  Look  at  the  Forerunner, 
the  Great  S.  John  the  Baptist,  dying  alone, 
slain  by  a  woman’s  caprice,  as  if  all  his  strong 
witness,  his  wonderful  life,  had  passed  for 
nothing.  Did  not  Abraham  need  courage  ? 
Did  not  Joseph  need  courage  ?  Did  not  S. 
John  the  Baptist  need  courage? — courage  in 
the  hands  of  God  ?  And  we  shall  need  it  too. 
Ask  many  a  young  man  to-day  who  has  fought 
his  way  to  Holy  Orders — has  he  found  it  easy  ? 
Did  not  God  know  the  earnestness  of  his  heart, 
the  sincerity  of  his  endeavour?  Why  then 
these  obstacles  ?  obstacles  at  home  from 
friends  who  tried  to  stop  him,  obstacles  from 
scanty  means,  so  that  at  one  time  it  seemed 
impossible  to  get  the  necessary  education,  the 
temptation  to  weariness  and  despair?  The 
call  of  God, — why  does  it  lead  us  over  such 
broken  paths  ?  Look  at  that  life  desolated 
with  sorrow  and  bereavement,  health,  friends, 
money,  all  gone.  Is  God  angry  ?  Is  God 
taking  vengeance  ?  Has  He  not  accepted  the 
earnest  offer  of  a  heart’s  devotion?  Again 
and  again  we  need  courage,  if  we  would  take 
the  highest  line.  The  crooked  temper  has  to 
be  brought  into  proper  order,  the  disabling 


FORTITUDE 


85 


vices  to  be  eradicated,  tlie  rebellious  self-will 
to  be  brought  into  harmony  with  God’s  Will. 
Those  great  gifts  and  virtues  which  He 
designs  for  us  do  not  spring  up  naturally  in 
the  heart,  they  have  to  be  beaten  out  by  the 
blows  of  adversity,  and  shaped  by  the  keen 
edge  of  discipline.  Courage  is  needed  daily  to 
answer  to  God’s  call,  courage  to  draw  out  the 
fulness  of  blessing  which  He  designs  for  us, 
knowing  that  whom  the  Lord  loveth  He 
chasteneth,  and  scourgeth  every  son  whom 
He  receiveth. 

2.  But  apart  from  God’s  discipline,  with 
its  healing  smart  and  bracing  correction,  the 
child  of  God  soon  becomes  conscious  that  the 
way  of  uprightness  and  integrity  is  only  to  be 
pursued  in  the  face  of  a  fierce  opposition  from 
a  hostile  world.  We  look  back  over  the 
glorious  record  of  Christian  heroism,  and  we 
see  how  again  and  again  the  servant  of  God 
was  pursued,  hunted,  and  trampled  down,  not 
for  any  tangible  offence,  but  on  the  grounds 
suggested  by  an  insane  prejudice  and  cruel 
misrepresentation.  We  sing  day  by  day, 
little  realising  what  we  say,  “  The  noble 
army  of  martyrs,  praise  Thee.”  We  seldom 
stop  to  consider  the  strange  anomaly  that  the 
world  should  have  hasted  to  extirpate  with 
every  sort  of  cruelty  those  whose  only  offence 
it  was  that  they  were  living  lives  of  purity, 
devotion,  and  beneficence. 


86 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


The  days  of  martyrdom  are  not  passed,  we 
have  seen  devoted  missionaries,  and  natives 
still  young  in  their  Christian  profession,  tor¬ 
tured  and  put  to  death  in  China  for 
their  faith,  and  the  supposed  evils  with  which 
fanatical  prejudice  surrounds  it.  It  is  a  stern 
awakening  to  an  age  like  this,  which  thinks 
so  little  as  to  the  value  of  this  or  that  pro¬ 
fession  of  faith,  and  poses  as  the  enlightened 
upholder  of  all  convictions,  while  believing 
sincerely  in  none — to  see  a  profession  of  faith 
once  more  made  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 
Don’t  let  us  be  taken  in,  dear  brethren,  by 
expressions  of  liberal  tolerance  at  home  ;  there 
are  no  bigots  so  fierce,  none,  in  many  cases,  so 
cruelly  intolerant,  as  those  who  profess  to 
disbelieve  in  the  importance  of  any  definite 
system  of  faith,  and  who  mock  at  dogmatic 
precision.  Most  certainly  he  who  will  follow 
Jesus  Christ  wherever  he  lives,  and  however 
humble  be  his  position,  will  have  to  reckon  with 
a  world  largely  and  strangely  hostile,  with  a 
tolerance  which  stops  short  of  the  faith 
which  he  believes,  and  the  life  which  he  is  called 
upon  to  live  in  virtue  of  his  Christian  calling. 
A  man  of  principle,  i.e.,  a  man  who  consis¬ 
tently  follows  what  is  right  because  it  is  right 
will  need  more  and  more  the  cardinal  virtue 
of  Fortitude.  It  is  an  occasion,  perhaps,  when 
some  question  of  morality  is  being  hotly 


FORTITUDE 


87 


argued.  “  This  has  been  denounced  as  wrong 
but  I  see  no  harm  in  it,”  says  some  fierce 
disputant,  “  but  what  sayest  thou  ?  On  what 
authority  doest  thou  these  things,  and  who 
gave  thee  this  authority  ?  ”  Suddenly  perhaps 
the  most  sacred  truths  of  religion,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Sacraments,  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible,  old  and  cherished  beliefs  are  tossed 
wildly  into  the  seething  whirlpool  of 
controversy.  “Is  it  lawful  to  give  tribute  to 
Caesar  or  not  ?  ”  Questions  of  the  day, 
furiously  and  hotly  contested,  have  to  be 
answered,  when  it  seems  impossible  to  avoid 
offending  either  this  one  or  that.  “  Surely 
thou  art  one  of  this  man’s  disciples  ?  ”  The 
challenge  comes  when  it  is  just  most  incon¬ 
venient,  when  the  consequences  of  the  avowal 
seem  to  be  most  perilous.  What  a  tempta¬ 
tion  it  is  to  hide  the  unpopular  belief,  to 
shrink  away  from  the  side  of  those  who  are 
being  persecuted  for  righteousness  sake,  and 
buy  a  momentary  and  disgraceful  peace  at  the 
price  of  cowardice,  and  to  carry  away  the 
almost  unsupportable  burden  of  a  dishonoured 
conscience.  My  brethren,  we  need  not  go 
back  to  the  ages  of  the  persecutions  to  look 
for  martyrs.  We  need  not  leave  our  shores 
and  seek  the  glorious  fields  of  missionary 
service  to  win  that  precious  prize,  and  make 
that  noble  profession.  Martyrdom,  in  the 


88 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


sense  of  witness  to  unpopular  truths,  is  the  lot 
of  every  one  who  is  trying  to  live  close  to  God. 
We  cannot  hope  to  escape  it,  or  to  pass 
through  life  unnoticed.  Every  good  life  is  a 
protest  to  the  evil  around,  which  challenges 
notice.  Every  true  Christian  man  of  principle 
is  bound  to  be  ready  to  give  an  answer  to 
every  man  that  asketh  him  a  reason  of  the 
hope  that  is  in  him  with  meekness  and  fear. 
And  it  is  astonishing  how  great  a  demand  this 
makes  on  a  man’s  courage.  Many  a  man 
would  rather  meet  an  armed  foe  and 
court  death  in  the  assault  than  he  would  stand 
up  and  proclaim  himself  a  Christian  in  the 
face  of  mockery  and  opposition.  Many  find  it 
harder  to  say  the  little  word  “  No  ”  to  an  evil 
suggestion  than  they  would  to  face  some  over¬ 
whelming  danger.  Moral  courage  is  needed 
day  by  day  if  we  would  carry  our  principles 
untarnished  through  the  world.  Few  of  us 
would  be  able  to  carry  out  without  shrinking 
that  brave  determination  which  animated  our 
great  statesman  of  whom  we  are  told  that  he 
rose  from  the  dinner-table  and  ordered  his 
carriage  when  the  conversation  took  a  turn 
which  was  dishonourable  to  the  Christian 
profession  and  became  an  insult  to  His  Divine 
Master. 

3.  And  Fortitude  no  less  is  a  virtue  which 
we  require  in  dealing  with  our  own  inherent 


FORTITUDE 


89 


weakness.  It  takes  a  man  a  long  time  to  dis¬ 
cover  how  essentially  weak  he  is,  and  how 
utterly  unable  to  do  anything  that  is  good,  or 
overcome  anything  that  is  evil,  without  the 
grace  of  God. 

How  many  people  are  being  paralysed  with 
what  they  call  their  temperament  or  their 
besetting  sin  !  How  many  have  ceased 
even  to  try  to  overcome  these  things  which 
seem  to  overmaster  their  nature !  Here 
Fortitude  comes  to  our  aid  and  bids  us  refuse 
to  recognise  the  word  “  impossible  ”  as  being  in 
the  Christian  vocabulary.  God  made  us,  God 
knows  whereof  we  are  made.  God  is 
Almighty.  God  will  never  suffer  us  to  be 
tempted  above  that  we  are  able.  God,  by  His 
grace,  will  enable  us  to  overcome  sins  and 
faults  which  seem  to  be  most  deeply  engrained 
in  our  nature.  Many  a  man  is  being  lured 
into  sin  by  the  enticement  of  temptation. 
Many  are  drifting  into  sin  from  very 
weakness,  but  many  also  are  being  frightened 
into  sin  from  a  sense  of  their  own  powerless¬ 
ness  to  resist.  It  is  here  that  courage  comes 
to  our  aid.  4  Strong  Son  of  God,’  we  pray, 
c  give  us  of  Thy  strength.’  The  reproach  of 
the  ancient  world  has  been  done  away  in 
Christ.  Now  we  may  not  only  know  what  is 
right,  but  by  His  grace  and  strength  we  are 
enabled  to  do  it.  To  have  failed  again  and 


90 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


again  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  ulti¬ 
mately  conquer.  That  which  we  now  call  our 
weak  point  will,  by  God’s  grace,  be  our  strong 
point.  Courage,  with  all  its  noble  strength, 
will  rise  up  within  us,  and  refuse  to  acquiesce 
in  slavery,  in  a  degraded  will,  in  overmaster¬ 
ing  desires,  temptation  feebly  resisted,  and 
returning  with  overwhelming  force.  Again 
and  again  we  read  in  the  Bible  this  exhorta¬ 
tion  “  Be  strong.”  Ghostly  strength  is  one  of 
the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  was  poured 
upon  us  at  our  baptism.  And  one  of  the 
great  secrets  of  overcoming  evil  is  to  be  brave 
and  never  to  despair. 

Ah  !  my  brethren,  if  ever  we  have  admired 
the  virtue  of  courage  in  some  of  its  noble  and 
conspicuous  manifestations  ;  if  our  hearts  have 
been  stirred  within  us  at  the  heroes  of  the 
battle-field  or  the  hospital,  let  us  not  cease 
our  efforts  until  we  have  made  it  alive 
within  ourselves.  “  For  valour  ” — let  that 
be  our  coveted  decoration  at  the  hands 
of  our  Sovereign  Lord.  Yes,  that  hard  life  so 
full  of  trouble,  so  beset  with  difficulty,  with  its 
heartrending-sorrows  and  desolating  anguish, 
needs  a  brave  heart  to  support  it  and  to 
draw  from  it  the  discipline  and  the  blessing 
with  which  God  has  charged  it.  Courage  is 
the  virtue  we  need,  as  we  press  forward 
clasping  our  treasure  to  our  heart,  as  the 


FORTITUDE 


91 


world  surges  and  tosses  round  us,  in  its  fury 
and  hatred  seeking  to  rob  us  of  our  peace 
and  joy  and  crown  of  blessing.  Courage  is 
what  we  need  to  fight  the  great  battle  against 
evil  within,  a  courage  which  refuses  to  yield, 
and  knows  no  despair.  Here  is  a  virtue 
which  no  one  can  afford  to  neglect,  here  is  a 
virtue  which  extracts  admiration  even  from 
our  foes. 

“  The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salvation ; 
whom  then  shall  I  fear :  the  Lord  is  the 
strength  of  my  life  ;  of  whom  then  shall  I 
be  afraid  ?  ” 


y 

THE  NEW  CENTURY 


y 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 
Preached  at  S.  Paul’s  in  December,  1900. 

“  But  Thou  art  the  same,  and  Thy  years  shall  not  fail.”— 
Psa.  cii.  27. 

W\e  stand  to-night,  dear  brethren,  at  the  very 
edge  of  a  new  century.  True,  day  and  night 
will  go  on  as  before,  as  far  as  we  know,  on 
Tuesday  next  ;  there  will  be  no  change 
stamped  visibly  on  the  face  of  the  world. 
The  curtain  will  not  fall,  and  a  new  scene 
usher  in  a  new  act,  before  which  we  shall 
play  our  little  part  on  the  stage.  Business 
will  be  the  same,  pleasure  will  be  the  same, 
the  great  stream  of  life  will  pour  along  with¬ 
out  even  a  shadow  of  a  passing  cloud  on  its 
surface. 

A  change  of  century  is  after  all  only  a 
sentiment,  an  appeal  to  the  imagination.  A 
century  is  at  the  most  a  carefully  ruled  page 
with  its  spaces,  and  divisions,  and  headings 
under  which  we  put  down  the  precious  figures 

95 


96 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


of  time  as  it  pours  itself  out  in  its  golden 
flood.  We  are  turning  over  another  page, 
that  is  all ;  but  there  is  something  to  be 
carried  on  as  a  remainder  from  those  items  of 
days  and  years,  to  be  added  to  the  greater 
column  of  history.  A  life  without  imagina¬ 
tion  is,  after  all,  a  maimed  life,  a  life  without 
poetry,  music,  or  other  art.  God  has  ever 
hung  the  walls  of  our  life  with  pictures  to 
cheer  us  and  instruct  us,  such  as  we  find  in 
the  course  of  Nature,  the  yearly  cycle  of 
religious  commemorations,  or  the  anni¬ 
versaries  of  history.  And  one  picture  is 
finished  to-day  on  the  walls  of  our  life,  and 
another  is  waiting  to  be  sketched  in,  while 
God  says  to  those  who  pass  by,  “  Interro¬ 
gate  the  past,  occupy  the  present,  trust  the 
future,’’  for,  after  all,  “  single  days  are 
single  lives.  There  is  no  difference  between 
a  day  and  an  age." 


I. 

It  is  a  solemn  thing  to  enter  on  a  period 
of  which,  in  all  human  probability,  no  single 
person  here  will  live  to  see  the  end.  Xerxes 
wept  as  he  sat  on  his  marble  throne  and  saw 
gathered  before  him  the  vast  host  which  he 
had  mustered  for  his  colossal  enterprise  ;  he 


THE  NEW  CENTURY  97 

wept  as  he  looked  down  on  his  battalions 
and  galleys,  in  which  the  whole  Eastern 
world  seemed  astir,  moving  to  engulf  the 
West,  because,  he  said,  in  a  hundred  years’ 
time  all  would  be  gone.  And  who  of  all 
gathered  here  can  hope  to  see  another  day 
like  this  ?  The  old  century  totters  forward, 
leaning  on  the  future,  an  old  man  leaning 
on  a  youth.  He  whispers  in  his  ear  his 
successes;  he  passes  on  from  his  trembling 
fingers  the  blazing  torch,  while  youth  shouts 
back  his  confident  schemes  impatient  to  be 
gone,  exulting  in  his  strength  and  flushed 
already  with  anticipated  victory.  “  Things 
will  not  be  as  they  have  been,”  mourns  the 
old  century.  “The  world’s  great  age  begins 
anew,  the  golden  years  return,”  shouts  the 
new.  At  least,  we  will  thank  imagination 
for  giving  us  a  pause,  a  time  to  look  around 
us,  a  moment  to  think,  just  such  a  time  as 
when  we  take  down  the  sheet  which  has 
covered  the  work,  and  look  and  compare, 
and  note :  this  is  finished,  this  remains  to 
be  done ;  this  must  come  away.  The  end  of 
a  century — it  is  a  resting-place  in  life’s 
stage;  we  will  thank  imagination  for  that. 
We  have  been  sailing  along  life’s  stream, 
now  touching  here,  now  touching  there  ;  and 
to-day  for  a  moment  we  disembark  and  look 
around  us,  before  we  enter  on  a  new  stage ; 

8 


98 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


our  friends  and  travelling  companions  are 
all  around  us.  There  are  some  who  have 
been  carried  along,  and  have  never  once 
taken  their  eyes  off  their  business  :  nor  art, 
nor  nature,  nor  history,  nor  religion  has 
appealed  to  them ;  as  the  man  of  business 
has  been  conveyed,  like  a  bale  of  goods, 
from  one  point  to  another.  There  are  others 
who  only  remember  places  by  the  food  which 
they  ate,  who  have  passed  through  scenes  of 
historic  interest,  or  have  been  face  to  face 
with  nature  in  all  its  magnificence,  who 
have  passed  through  scenes  which  prophets 
and  kings  have  desired  to  see,  and  died 
without  seeing — still  they  only  remember 
the  dinner,  or  the  fruit,  or  the  heat  or  the 
cold ;  men  who  have  lived  for  appetite. 
Whereas  there  are  some  who  have  become 
“  a  part  of  all  that  they  have  met,”  to  whom 
life  has  been  one  long  course  of  beauty,  its 
storms  and  its  sunshine,  its  difficulties  and 
its  pleasures  all  eloquent ;  and  to-day  they 
feel  a  freshness  in  the  air  which  blows  off 
the  sea,  to-day  their  life  heaves  and  sighs 
with  a  deep  undercurrent  which  sets  in  from 
eternity :  already  they  can  discern  the  white 
barrier  of  foam,  and  the  dark  line  beyond, 
where  the  river  and  the  sea  unite  over  the 
bar  with  its  mournful  moan  and  gasping 
cadences ;  already  the  sea-birds  with  out- 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


99 


stretched  wings  are  flying  in  towards  them, 
messengers  from  the  future,  heralds  of  the 
unknown.  Imagination  can  do  much  to 
enrich  life,  but  we  must  sedulously  refuse  to 
allow  it  to  sap  its  vitality.  Imagination  is 
no  friend  if  it  causes  us  to  sit  down  on  the 
edge  of  a  century  and  build  castles  in  the 
air  which  perish  while  we  build.  Imagination 
is  no  friend  if  it  be  taken  into  the  service 
of  melancholy  and  despondency,  or  if  it  be 
allowed  to  sacrifice  work  for  the  sake  of 
feeling. 

No  doubt  there  have  been  watchers  standing 
at  the  brink  of  centuries  before  ours,  who, 
instead  of  borrowing  from  the  future  in  hope, 
have  entered  the  new  year  weighted  with 
the  liabilities  of  melancholy  and  despair.  In 
1801,  as  the  nineteenth  century  began  to 
dawn,  there  must  have  been  many  who 
looked  out  anxiously  at  the  dark  clouds  of 
war.  It  was  the  year  of  Nelson’s  victory  at 
Copenhagen ;  it  was  a  year  when  one  of  the 
threatened  invasions  of  England  by  our 
neighbours  seemed  more  than  usually 
imminent.  Doubtless  there  were  some  who 
sat  down  in  despair,  while  imagination  drew 
a  figure  in  fire  and  smoke  and  blood  of  a 
devastated  England,  and  the  coming  of  a 
military  Antichrist. 

When  the  eighteenth  century  dawned,  in 


100 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


1701,  there  was  no  direct  successor  to  the 
throne  of  England,  after  the  death  of 
William  III.  and  Anne.  James  II.  died  this 
year  in  exile,  with  all  the  complications  that 
followed  on  his  death,  and  William  III. 
himself  was  within  one  year  of  his  own 
death.  No  doubt  many  must  have  sat  down 
with  imagination  then,  and  mourned  over 
the  unsettled  times,  and  have  conjured  up 
visions  clouded  by  the  worst  precedents  out 
of  our  stormy  history. 

When  the  seventeenth  century  dawned,  in 
1601,  a  glorious  reign  was  coming  to  an  end, 
glorious  in  spite  of  fears  and  trouble.  And 
the  domestic  strife  which  centred  round 
Lord  Essex  was  disturbing  the  last  years  of 
Elizabeth,  who  was  within  two  years  of  her 
death.  Here,  again,  there  must  have  been 
many  who  said,  What  will  come  after?  Is 
there  stability  and  vitality  enough  to  survive 
the  shock  of  change  ?  Imagination  must 
have  had  some  gloomy  as  well  as  hopeful 
pages  to  paint  at  the  opening  of  that  new 
volume  of  history.  And  so  in  1501,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  This 
was  the  year  when  Catharine  of  Arragon 
appeared  in  England  as  the  bride  of  Prince 
Arthur,  whose  marriage  with  Henry  VIII. 
afterwards  was  the  apparently  slight  instru¬ 
mental  cause  of  such  tremendous  convulsions. 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


101 


Here  imagination  must  have  been  at  fault, 
or,  at  least,  barely  cognisant  of  the  changes 
which  loomed  indistinguishable  before  it  in 
the  thick  clouds  which  veil  the  Providence 
of  God. 

Think  what  it  must  have  meant  at  different 
periods  throughout  these  four  centuries,  to 
be  a  Churchman  keenly  alive  to  the  progress 
of  religion  and  the  interests  of  the  spread 
of  Christian  morality  and  sound  doctrine ! 
Think  how  again  and  again  the  cause  of 
religion  must  have  seemed  to  be  desperate. 
Think,  in  1501,  of  the  clouds  which  were 
gathering,  the  losing  of  all  confidence  in 
leaders,  the  wild  upheaval  of  passion  and 
rapine  which  traded  on  the  genuine  desire 
for  reformation,  and  left  behind  them  such 
a  legacy  of  complication,  in  the  nemesis  which 
always  follows  on  those  who  do  what  is 
right  in  a  wrong  way.  Think  in  the  next 
century  of  the  storm  which  burst  over  the 
Church  in  this  land,  when  the  strong  hand 
of  Elizabeth  was  removed,  culminating  in 
the  overthrow  of  both  Altar  and  Throne. 
This  has  been  given  as  a  fair  estimate  of 
the  state  of  religion  in  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  “  Throughout  Society 
men  looked  upon  office,  not  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  duties  to  be  performed,  but 
from  that  of  the  emolument  to  be  gained. 


102 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


If  they  were  politicians  they  expected  and 
received  in  the  shape  of  sinecures  and 
gratifications  what  they  considered  to  be  a 
reasonable  remuneration  for  their  services. 
If  they  were  ecclesiastics  they  accepted 
deaneries  and  bishoprics  and  rectories,  be¬ 
cause  by  such  combinations  alone  could  they 
obtain  a  reasonable  reward  for  their  efforts. 
The  more  this  system  flourishes  the  more  dead 
became  religion,  the  more  dull  the  sense  of  re¬ 
sponsibility.”  In  this  cathedral,  for  instance, 
in  the  year  1700,  there  were  but  six  communi¬ 
cants  at  the  only  celebration  on  Easter  Day. 
And  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  things  were  much  the  same,  perhaps 
worse.  The  sense  of  corporate  worship  and 
of  the  meaning  of  a  liturgy  had  almost  died 
out.  “  Amid  the  crash  of  empires  and  the 
stress  of  revolutions,  unaffected  by  the  losses 
of  the  past  or  the  hopes  of  the  future,  in¬ 
different  alike  to  the  religious  movement 
within,  or  political  danger  without,  the 
Church  of  England  raised  her  impassive 
front  among  the  storms  which  raged  round 
her,  sublime  in  her  apathy,  unchanged  and 
apparently  unchangeable,  waiting  in  patience 
for  the  knell  of  her  doom  to  toll.”  So  might 
Despair  have  spoken  at  any  of  these 
moments,  quite  unconscious  of  the  shoots 
of  life  which  were  slowly  developing  beneath 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


103 


the  unpromising  surface,  the  more  vigorous 
for  each  storm,  the  stronger  for  each 
repression,  and  the  more  enduring  by  virtue 
of  each  frost.  If  we  look  carefully  we  shall 
find  in  the  darkest  periods  that  which  the 
world  calls  a  reaction.  “  All  seems  at  one 
moment  drifting  to  confusion.  We  say  it 
is  vain  to  fight  against  the  current ;  we  think 
that  all  has  been  lost,  when,  the  next,  the 
tide  comes  back  in  its  strength  to  save  us, 
and,  behold !  more  than  we  had  lost  is 
recovered.”  The  comparative  settlement 
under  Elizabeth  succeeds  the  wild  storms 
under  Henry,  Edward,  and  Mary  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  strong  and  learned 
Churchmen  of  the  Restoration  are  the  re¬ 
action  from  the  ignorance  and  profanity  of 
the  Great  Rebellion  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  vigorous  revival  of  spiritual 
life  under  Wesley  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  is  the  direct  result  of 
the  dead  Erastianism  and  lifeless  orthodoxy 
of  its  opening  years.  The  Oxford  Revival 
in  the  nineteenth  century  has  wiped  away, 
or  tended  to  do  so,  the  reproach  which  lay 
upon  its  earlier  years.  But  these  reactions, 
as  we  call  them,  are  not  merely  like  the 
swaying  of  a  pendulum,  first  to  one  side 
then  to  the  other  in  the  restlessness  of 
human  fashion  which  never  continueth  in 


104 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


one  stay,  they  are  comparable  rather  to  the 
incoming  tide,  each  wave  as  it  recedes  comes 
back — it  is  true,  only  to  recede  again — but 
there  is  a  steady  progress  all  the  while ; 
gradually  the  bay  is  filling  up,  with  its  flood 
of  deep  water  obliterating  the  barren  sands 
which  before  lay  bare.  Through  all  the 
changes  there  has  been  one  immovable 
supreme  Will,  guiding  and  directing  all. 
Reaction,  as  we  call  it,  is  only  the  changing 
of  God’s  right  hand  now  visible  now  hidden 
from  us.  “  Thou  art  the  Same  ”  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  our  creed  as  we  watch  the 
evolution  of  His  purpose  through  the  tossing 
waves  of  centuries  as  they  roll  by  us,  lashed 
with  storm  and  white  with  tempest.  “The 
waters  thereof  rage  and  swell,  and  the 
mountains  shake  at  the  tempest  of  the  same.” 
“  The  Lord  sitteth  above  the  water  flood. 
The  Lord  remaineth  a  King  for  ever.” 


“Say  not  the  struggle  naught  availeth 
The  labour  and  the  wounds  are  vain, 
The  enemy  faints  not,  nor  faileth, 

And  as  things  have  been  they  remain. 


If  hopes  were  dupes,  fears  may  be  liars  ; 

It  may  be,  in  yon  smoke  concealed, 
Your  comrades  chase  e’en  now  the  fliers, 
And,  but  for  you,  possess  the  field. 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


105 


For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking, 
Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain, 

Far  back  through  creeks  and  inlets  making, 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main. 

And  not  by  eastern  windows  only, 

When  daylight  comes,  comes  in  the  light. 
In  front  the  sun  climbs  slow,  how  slowly, 
But  westward,  look!  the  land  is  bright.” 


II. 

“  Thou  art  the  Same.”  “  Thou  art  He,”  the 
unchanging  One.  The  conduct  of  men  has 
varied  and  will  vary,  according  to  the  various 
ways  in  which  they  regard  these  wondrous 
words. 

1.  Fatalism  has  a  powerful  fascination  for 
many  minds  as  the  religion  of  indolence, 
even  with  those  who  would  energetically 
repudiate  it  as  a  formal  doctrine.  “Wliat 
must  be,  must  be  ”  is  a  formula  which  relieves 
us  from  all  necessity  for  exertion.  “  Christ 
has  died  to  save  me  ” ;  there  is  an  end  of  all 
need  for  personal  effort.  “  If  the  Church  is 
to  come  to  ruin,  nothing  that  I  can  do  will 
save  it  ;  “if  the  empire  is  to  go  the  way 
of  the  other  great  empires  of  the  ancient 
world,  we  can  only  submit,  no  one  individual 
can  stay  it  ”  ;  “  if  religious  education  in  this 
country  is  a  defeated  cause,  it  is  no  use 


106 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


keeping  up  a  hopeless  struggle  ”  ;  “  if  society 
is  tottering  to  decay  over  the  ruins  of 
morality,  no  one  can  prevent  it.”  “  All  these 
things  are  in  higher  hands  than  ours/’  says 
the  moral  sluggard,  and  he  grounds  his  arms, 
packs  up  his  baggage,  and  leaves  his  post, 
only  too  ready  to  give  up  a  struggle  and 
settle  down  in  the  calm  of  an  inglorious 
fatalism.  Rut  surely  we  shall  be  reading  all 
history  amiss  if  this  is  the  only  lesson  we 
get  out  of  the  contemplation  of  its  records ; 
that  do  what  we  will  God  always  has  His 
way.  In  one  sense  it  is  true ;  true  if  we 
believe  that  whatever  we  do  God  will  correct 
our  mistakes,  and  in  the  end  His  Will  will 
be  done ;  false  if  we  believe  that  He  wishes 
to  govern  the  world  without  the  co-operation 
of  man,  or  at  the  best  leaving  them  only  a 
fictitious  and  unreal  part,  as  a  grown-up  man 
might  please  a  child  by  letting  him  think 
that  he  was  giving  him  real  assistance  in  a 
work  beyond  his  powers,  when  in  reality  he 
can  do  him  no  good,  or  is  at  best  “  something 
between  a  hindrance  and  a  help.”  God’s  Will 
prevails,  but  our  co-operation  in  the  carrying 
out  of  that  W  ill  is  part  of  the  Divine 
provision.  The  end  which  He  decrees  is 
absolute,  the  means  of  approaching  that  end 
are  various,  although  still  in  His  hand.  A 
conquered  kingdom  may  acquiesce  in  the 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


107 


new  government  thus  imposed  upon  it,  and 
by  an  earnest  co-operation  make  the  best  use 
of  the  vicissitudes  which  came  upon  it.  An 
unwise  decision,  on  the  other  hand,  may 
refuse  to  co-operate,  prolong  a  useless 
struggle,  bring  untold  misery  on  the  land, 
and  in  the  end  be  forced  to  submit  to  the 
inevitable.  In  either  case  there  was  no  re¬ 
sisting  the  determination  of  the  higher  power, 
but  in  the  one  case  the  means  pursued  were 
those  of  wise  acquiescence  and  thoughtful 
co-operation,  in  the  other  foolish  resistance, 
with  its  inevitable  result  of  punishment  and 
disaster.  We  must  act  as  if  everything  were 
being  done  by  us,  even  while  we  know  that 
our  movements  are  controlled  by  a  higher 
power.  The  indolent  and  rebellious  are 
bringing  on  themselves,  and  on  the  centuries 
in  which  they  live,  the  trouble  and  confusion 
which  belong  to  those  who  resist  the  Will 
of  God.  Every  man  is  bound  to  contribute 
to  the  good  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives. 
He  cannot  stand  on  one  side  and  say,  “  Things 
will  go  on  without  me  ” ;  every  part  is 
necessary  in  the  great  machine  of  God.  Look 
out,  dear  brethren,  on  the  serious  questions 
which  loom  before  us  in  the  coming  century. 
Your  duties  towards  them  are  a  great  deal 
more  than  those  of  a  speculative  curiosity. 
They  are  the  duties  of  an  earnest  and 


108 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


thoughtful  co-operation  with  God.  What 
has  God  in  store  for  the  Church  of  England 
in  the  coming  century  ?  W e  cannot  for  one 
moment  doubt,  as  we  interrogate  the  past, 
that  the  Church  is  alive  with  the  rich  sap 
which  runs  through  and  through  the  healthy 
branches  of  the  one  true  Vine.  But  the 
wilfulness  and  indolence  of  man  may  mar, 
put  back,  and  pull  down  much  promise  of 
rich  fruit  in  the  immediate  future.  God  will 
save  His  Church,  we  know  that,  but  for  the 
century  now  coming  there  may  be  a  lopped 
stump,  instead  of  a  fruitful  bough,  and  God 
may  even  take  away  the  fruitful  branch 
from  its  unkindly  prop,  and  train  it  else¬ 
where.  My  brethren,  a  very  great  deal 
depends  on  the  earnestness  and  faithfulness 
of  Churchmen.  Leaves  without  fruit  are  a 
sony  spectacle  ;  beautiful  churches,  beautiful 
services  without  the  fruits  of  religion  are 
a  sad  perversion  of  truth.  The  wild  boar 
of  controversy  who  roots  up  must  be  driven 
aw  ay ,  the  wild  beasts  of  careless  living 
which  rend  its  boughs  must  be  chased  off. 
The  apathy  of  Churchmen  and  the  in- 
diff ei  ence  they  display  are  fruitful  sources 
of  trouble.  As  we  look  out  on  the  Church 
questions,  the  education  question,  the  moral 
question,  the  social  question — on  all  the 
difficulties  which  gather  and  threaten  in 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


109 


front  of  us  let  us  at  least  cast  off  indolence, 
the  indolence  of  fatalism.  Let  each  see 
what  he  can  do  in  his  own  way,  and  in  his 
own  conviction,  towards  meeting  the  dangers 
which  seem  to  loom  ahead.  It  is  full  of 
bad  omen  for  the  world  when  the  good  men 
stand  on  one  side  and  leave  the  vacant  posts 
to  mere  adventurers.  It  is  no  use  musing 
sentimentally  over  the  passing  of  a  century, 
or  musing  complacently  over  the  errors  of 
the  times  in  which  we  live.  It  is  no  use 
saying,  “  Where  are  the  good  old  days  ?  We 
are  going  through  anarchy  to  atheism,  and 
through  atheism  to  destruction.”  The  people 
who  sit  on  the  edge  of  the  hill  and  watch 
the  battle  are  always  mistaking  victory  for 
defeat  and  defeat  for  victory.  Descend  into 
the  contest,  take  up  once  more  your  weapons 
of  defence,  do  your  duty  to  society,  pay 
your  tithe  of  a  good  life  to  the  living  coffers 
of  the  Church.  Don  t  dabble  in  questions, 
but  contend  for  causes ;  don’t  shed  tears  for 
exploded  Utopias,  but  exercise  your  citizen¬ 
ship  in  the  present.  There  is  your  post, 
there  in  the  thick  of  the  fray,  there  in  the 
quiet  corner,  there  on  the  lonely  plain, 
there  in  the  fire  and  heat  of  danger,  there 
you  must  stay  until  your  relief  comes.  It 
will  be  a  sad  thing  at  the  winding  up  of 
the  ages,  when  century  has  followed  century 


110 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


until  the  cord  of  destiny  has  been  firmly 
fixed,  sure  and  steadfast,  in  God,  if  it  be 
found  that  you,  who  were  stored  and  armed 
by  God  with  education,  with  opportunities 
which  fitted  you  for  the  post,  as  the  one 
man  designed  by  Him  to  fill  it,  at  the  last 
and  dreadful  day  before  men  and  angels, 
must  be  for  ever  proclaimed  as  a  slothful 
and  wicked  servant,  who  more  than  any  one 
else  was  false  to  a  great  trust,  and  hopelessly 
betrayed  a  great  opportunity. 

2.  But  in  contradistinction  to  the  fatalism 
of  indolence  we  shall  also  find,  looking  out 
on  the  century,  the  insolence  of  self-sufficiency. 
Fatalism  folded  its  arms  and  became  an 
inert  puppet,  without  a  will  and  without 
an  effort,  while  in  pretended  piety  it  could 
not  presume  to  interfere  with  God.  Self- 
sufficiency,  on  the  other  hand,  is  extremely 
active;  it  deals  with  every  department  of 
human  action,  and  it  does  not  need  God  at 
any  point,  it  can  do  without  Him.  It  takes 
what  remains  of  the  Old  Testament,  after  it 
has  been  stretched  and  contracted  by  Pro¬ 
crustean  methods  to  the  precise  standard  of 
criticism  which  happens  to  be  in  fashion  ;  it 
shows  us  what  God  ought  to  have  said,  and 
what  He  did  say  and  did  not  say,  and  turns 
away  in  disgust  from  the  childish  prattle  of 
an  infant  world.  It  takes  the  New  Testament 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


111 


and  inverts  its  purpose  :  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  the  Gospel,  not  the  Atonement ; 
the  poetry  of  a  Galilean  idyll,  not  the  stern 
proclamation  of  a  warfare  with  sin,  and  the 
means  of  salvation.  Flushed  with  victory, 
confident  of  success,  Self-conceit  turns  its 
back  on  a  poverty-stricken  past,  and  gazes 
out  into  an  ideal  future,  out  of  which 
superstition  has  vanished,  and  humanity, 
seated  firmly  in  the  chariot  of  progress, 
shall  drive  the  horses  of  certainty  through 
a  woi  Id  prostrate  with  wonder  and  glowing 
with  admiration.  Evil  will  shrivel  up  under 
the  sun  of  beauty;  violence  and  greed  will 
be  drawn  captive  by  the  strains  of  a  new 
Orpheus.  Men  will  reach  out  after  what  is 
for  the  common  weal,  stirred  by  the  pro¬ 
clamation  of  a  new  morality.  And  God  shall 
crown  the  whole  as  He  looks  down  with 
approbation  on  a  world  which  exists  without 
Him,  and  for  which  He  has  ceased  to  care. 
There  must  be  a  great  First  Cause ;  it  will  do 
no  harm  to  call  it  God.  There  are  many 
schemes,  my  brethren,  started  to-day  which 
assume  a  power  for  man  which  experience 
and  revelation  both  are  unable  to  assign  to 
him.  Any  scheme  which  leaves  out  God, 
any  scheme  which  forgets  the  taint  and  the 
warp  of  sin  which  must  be  reckoned  with, 
is  not  a  scheme  of  progress,  but  a  scheme 


112 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


of  failure,  because  it  means  that  time  will 
be  wasted  in  recovery  and  repair,  that  the 
errors  of  one  generation  will  need  to  be 
taken  out  by  the  next.  An  army  has  made 
no  real  progress  if  it  has  pushed  rapidly 
forward  without  protecting  its  advance.  A 
spendthrift  has  made  no  advance  in  life  if 
he  has  spent  all,  while  making  no  provision 
for  the  future.  Slow  and  exacting  are  the 
ways  of  God  ;  sacraments,  worship,  discipline, 
restraint,  all  seem  so  much  time  taken  from 
the  activities  of  life,  while  in  reality  they 
secure  their  fuller  development. 

God,  who  knew  what  was  best  for  man, 
because  He  was  man,  has  nothing  new  to 
offer  us  for  the  new  century.  Still,  He  says 
to  the  ardent  souls  that  step  eagerly  into 
rank,  “Ye  must  be  born  again.”  Still  He 
says  to  the  self-sufficient  impulse  of  the 
enthusiast,  “  Without  Me  ye  can  do  nothing.” 
Still  He  says  to  the  pushing  life  seeking  for 
fresh  worlds  to  conquer,  “  Except  ye  eat  the 
Flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink  His 
Blood,  ye  have  no  life  in  you.”  Still  He 
whispers  to  the  soul,  ever  restlessly  darting- 
off  into  new  pastures  and  seeking  for  new 
paths,  “  I  am  the  Good  Shepherd ;  if  any 
man  love  Me,  let  him  follow  Me.” 

Fire  will  burn  in  the  new  century  as  much 
as  it  did  in  the  old.  Water  will  drown, 


THE  NEW  CENTURY  113 

poison  will  kill,  men  will  grow  old  and  die 
as  they  have  done  in  the  past.  So  sin  will 
scorch,  and  sorrow  wither,  and  the  winds  of 
temptations  will  riot  along  with  headlong 
fin  y ,  as  they  have  done  before.  There  are 
few  figures  more  sad  and  pathetic  than 
those  whom  we  may  see  returning  footsore, 
dishevelled,  and  dreary,  the  remnant  of  the 
great  army  of  enthusiasts  who  start  forth 
at  every  fresh  crisis  of  the  world’s  history, 
to  find  a  new  scheme  for  its  regeneration. 

Thou  art  the  Same.”  A  hundred  years  of 
human  struggle  have  created  no  change  in 
the  attitude  of  God.  His  laws  are  immutable. 
His  scheme  of  redemption  embraces  all 
possible  developments  of  human  resource. 
God  is  not  forgetful,  but  patient.  And  He 
is  patient  because  He  is  eternal. 

3.  But  with  us,  alas  !  the  disappointment 
of  plans  is  too  often  the  prelude  of  despair. 
There  are  those  who  look  out  on  the  untrodden, 
fields  of  the  twentieth  century  with  gloom, 
and  sorrow,  and  distrust.  They  will  tell  you 
everything  is  wrong,  that  the  forces  of 
disorder  are  becoming  too  powerful  to  be 
restrained  by  the  forces  of  order ;  that  nation 
will  be  rising  against  nation  and  kingdom 
against  kingdom,  because  these  are  the  last 
days ;  that  wars  will  increase  and  not 
diminish ;  that  education  is  a  curse  and  not 

9 


114 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


a  blessing ;  that  we  know  too  much,  and 
that  in  increasing  knowledge  we  are  in¬ 
creasing  sorrow ;  that  progress  is  a  progress 
downwards,  not  upwards ;  that  perils  are 
threatening  family  life ;  that  social  life  is 
hollow,  and  business  principles  hopelessly 
corrupt ;  that  we  are  living  in  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  and  that  the  fire  from  heaven 
is  shortly  to  descend.  It  is  inevitable  that 
men  should  speak  like  this  if  they  lose  sight 
of  God.  It  is  the  reaction  which  follows  on 
the  pride  of  doing  everything,  the  gloomy 
conviction  that  they  can  do  nothing.  It  would 
be  ungrateful,  it  would  be  untrue,  it  would 
be  wrong  thus  to  enter  on  the  new  century. 
“  With  God  onwards  ”  is  our  true  motto, 
and  a  motto  that  will  never  fail  us.  “Trust 
the  future,”  that  is  a  council  of  hope,  and 
no  man  ever  did  good  work  yet  in  which 
he  had  lost  all  hope.  There  is  one  thing  we 
can  all  do,  and  that  is  the  piece  of  work 
which  God  has  put  before  us.  There  is  a 
sundial  in  the  midland  counties  whose  face 
is  spread  over  the  front  of  a  beautiful  house 
whose  walls  are  washed  by  the  Ouse  as  it 
slowly  sinks  away  past  meadow  and  village 
on  its  silent  course.  There  the  dial  speaks 
to  every  one  who  enters  in  at  the  door  with 
a  motto,  abrupt  and  rude,  almost  a  dis¬ 
courtesy  to  the  arriving  guest,  but  yet 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


115 


charged  with  a  meaning  which  may  make 
him  think — “  Go  about  your  business.”  This 
is  the  message  which  comes  from  light,  light 
which  is  the  shadow  of  God  as  it  falls 
across  our  life  to-day,  announcing  the  coming 
of  another  break  in  the  allotted  measure  of 
our  time.  “Go  about  your  business.”  It  is 
possible  to  waste  time  in  sentiment,  and  to 
be  managing  the  affairs  of  the  empire  in 
our  mind,  when  our  immediate  duty  was 
to  sweep  away  the  dirt  before  our  own  door. 
So  Elijah  was  recalled  from  his  melancholy 
dream  of  universal  corruption,  and  of  a 
nation  rushing  on  its  doom,  to  the  sense 
of  his  own  position  and  the  immediate 
requirements  of  his  duty.  “Go,  return  on 
thy  way  to  the  wilderness  of  Damascus ; 
and  when  thou  comest,  anoint  Hazael  to  be 
king  over  Syria ;  and  J ehu  the  son  of  Nimshi 
shalt  thou  anoint  to  be  king*  over  Israel : 
and  Elisha  the  son  of  Shaphat  of  Abel- 
Meholah  shalt  thou  anoint  to  be  prophet 
in  thy  room.”  It  is  well  to  think  of  the 
Church,  of  the  nation,  of  the  empire,  of  the 
world ;  but  there  is  one  bit  of  improvement 
at  which  we  can  always  labour — ourselves. 

The  year  past  has  been  full  of  troubles 
and  full  of  mercies.  “My  song  shall  be  of 
mercy  and  judgment :  unto  Thee,  O  Lord, 
will  I  sing.”  Few  of  us  can  have  seen 


116 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


unmoved  the  spectacle  here,  when  we  sent 
out  our  citizen  soldiers  with  prayer  and 
supplication  to  the  war,  and  received  them 
back  again  with  praise  and  thanksgiving 
within  these  hallowed  walls.  These  were 
not  the  actions  of  a  nation  that  had  for¬ 
gotten  God.  And  the  prayer  and  praises 
which  then  ascended  were  not  the  ebullition 
of  excitement  or  the  product  of  a  theatrical 
display.  It  has  been  a  year  of  turbulent 
controversy  in  the  Church?  Yes!  perhaps 
so.  One  or  two  people  can  make  a  great 
noise ;  the  hard  workers  go  on  doing  their 
work  quietly ;  they  know  too  much  the 
imperfections  of  their  own  work  to  have 
even  the  wish  to  disturb  their  neighbours’. 
Wherever  there  has  been  a  serious  endeavour 
to  work  for  God,  Religion,  and  His  Church, 
there  have  been  signs  most  hopeful  and 
encouraging,  of  the  very  best  feeling,  and 
of  the  greatest  desire  for  amity.  The 
meeting  at  Fulham  to  discuss  differences 
was  the  earnest  of  much  solid  good  for  the 
Church.  It  approached  them  in  the  true 
way,  with  prayer  and  mutual  respect,  with 
reverence  for  a  controversial  adversary,  and 
an  honest  endeavour  to  find  points  of  agree¬ 
ment.  The  great  religious  heart  of  this 
nation  is  on  the  side  of  unity,  not  of 
agitation.  It  knows  the  problems  and 


THE  NEW  CENTURY 


117 


difficulties  of  life  too  well  to  exaggerate 
trifles ;  a  nation  which  has  clothed  its  army 
with  khaki  and  given  up  the  tradition  of 
the  thin  red  line,  knows  full  well  that  the 
conditions  of  warfare  vary  even  if  the  strife 
is  the  same.  Respect  for  truth,  respect  for 
honour,  respect  for  one’s  neighbour’s  purity 
of  life,  love  for  God  and  His  Word,  love  for 
our  holy  Religion :  these  in  our  own  lives 
are  the  things  which  will  make  themselves 
felt  rather  than  a  listless  dreaming  as  we 
lean  upon  the  barrier  and  look  out  into  the 
night.  The  region  of  the  “may  be”  is  well- 
nigh  infinite,  the  region  of  the  “  must  be  ”  is 
limited  for  you  and  me,  and,  for  the  most 
part,  within  our  reach  and  cognisance.  Look 
back  in  earnestness,  look  forward  in  con¬ 
fidence.  God  is  the  Same ;  God  is  where  He 
was  before.  The  twentieth  century  comes 
to  us  with  the  same  old  message,  ever  more 
and  more  venerable,  ever  more  and  more 
true — “Honour  all  men.  Love  the  brother¬ 
hood.  Fear  God.  Honour  the  king.” 


VI 

THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN 


VI 

THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN 

A  Sermon  Preached  in  S.  Paul’s 
Cathedral,  Advent,  1894. 


“For  our  conversation  is  in  heaven.” — Phil.  iii.  20. 


When  Gibbon  is  assigning  his  five  well- 
known  causes  for  the  growth  of  Christianity, 
he  gives  as  the  second  the  doctrine  of  a 
future  life,  which,  he  says,  induced  men  to 
despise  their  present  existence,  and  fix  all 
their  hopes  on  immortality  beyond  the  grave. 
And,  indeed,  in  a  sneering  way  he  insinuates 
that  this  too  great  care  for  a  future  life  led 
them  to  neglect  onerous  duties  and  public 
service  which  no  State  could  admit  with  im¬ 
punity  ;  for  the  prosaic  duties  of  life  were 
neglected  in  order  to  attend  to  the  enervating 
demands  of  religion. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  how  con- 

121 


122 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


trary  this  is  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity, 
however  true  it  may  be  of  the  abuse  and  mis¬ 
application  of  Christian  ideas ;  but  at  the 
present  day  surely  the  tendency  is  all  the 
other  way.  The  vision  of  Heaven  as  a  prac¬ 
tical  influence  on  life  and  conduct  is  shadowy 
and  indistinct.  Men  seem  more  in  sympathy 
with  those  who  looked  for  a  millennium,  a 
reign  of  Christ  upon  a  purified  earth,  from 
which  suffering  and  imperfection  have  been 
banished.  And  the  duties  of  religion  and  the 
expenditure  of  thought  upon  another  world 
are  looked  upon  as  so  much  waste  of  time, 
which  might  be  devoted  to  material,  econo¬ 
mical,  sanitary,  and  moral  improvements. 
If  you  asked  the  average  man  what  he  thought 
about  Heaven,  he  would  probably  tell  you  that 
he  had  not  much  time  to  think  about  it  at 
all.  “I  strive,”  he  would  say,  “to  do  my  duty 
as  well  as  I  can  here,  to  be  straightforward 
and  honest,  and  keep  from  gross  sin ;  I  am 
doing  all  I  can  to  help  my  family,  and  try  to 
do  good  to  my  fellow-creatures,  and  then 
when  I  can  live  here  no  longer  I  shall  have  an 
illness,  perhaps  the  clergyman  will  come  and 
read  the  Bible  to  me,  I  shall  die,  and  I  hope  to 
go  to  Heaven.”  And  this  going  to  Heaven, 
what  is  it  ?  But  going  to  a  place  in  which  he 
can  feel  but  little  interest,  in  the  hope  that  in 
some  way  death  will  effect  a  complete  revo- 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  123 

lution,  in  taste,  feelings,  desires,  and  occu¬ 
pations  ;  that  things  will  interest  him  then 
which  are  distinctly  distasteful  to  him  now ; 
and  that  things  which  occupy  all  his  thoughts 
now  will  then  cease  to  affect  him.  We  die, 
that  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  thorough 

men  of  the  world ;  we  wake  up  thorough  men 
of  Heaven. 

Can  this  be  the  true  aim  which  God  has 
persistently  set  before  us  when  He  gave  us 
the  thought  and  promise  of  Heaven  ?  Is  it 
something  to  spoil  our  life  of  duty  here,  while 
we  live  in  the  distracted  state  of  a  man  who 
does  one  thing  while  he  is  busily  thinking  of 
another  ?  Is  it  a  place,  a  state,  so  shadowy 
and  unreal,  that  we  keep  it  as  an  ornament  of 
life  under  a  glass  case  while  we  bustle  about 
the  realities  of  existence,  and  try  to  make  this 
world  a  better  place,  instead  of  dreaming 
about  another  which  has  not  yet  come  before 
us  ?  Is  it  a  mere  refuge  to  which  in  imagina¬ 
tion  we  betake  ourselves  as  something  better 
than  Hell,  a  place  to  which,  if  we  dared,  we 
would  fain,  like  the  Indian  savage,  take  our 
horses  and  our  food  and  our  treasures,  as 
something  which  we  can  more  fully  under¬ 
stand  than  the  mystical  suggestions  of  the 

Book  of  Revelation  with  its  religious 
raptures  ? 


124 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


I. 

My  brethren,  if  we  are  to  believe  the 
Apostle’s  statement  which  I  have  just  read  to 
you,  Heaven  is  begun  already.  Our  conver¬ 
sation,  our  citizenship  is  in  Heaven  ;  as  he  tells 
us  elsewhere,  “Ye  are  no  more  strangers  and 
foreigners,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints.” 
Heaven  is  begun  here  to  the  Christian.  He 
is  a  member  of  that  community  already ;  he 
is  a  citizen  of  that  city.  There  is  an  upper 
and  a  lower  city  and  an  intermediate  zone,  but 
still  one  city.  At  death  we  do  but  change  our 
quarters,  while  we  continue  our  life  in 
unbroken  identity  in  the  commonwealth  of 
Heaven.  St.  Paul  was  using  a  metaphor  which 
conveyed  to  him  and  to  his  hearers  a  very  real 
meaning.  It  was  at  Philippi,  a  Roman  colony, 
that  he  obtained  that  satisfaction  and  redress 
which  belonged  to  him  by  right  of  his  Roman 
citizenship.  He  knew  what  it  was  to  be  able 
to  assert  wherever  he  went  his  share  in  that 
marvellous  life  of  discipline  and  order  which 
extended  to  the  very  edge  of  the  Roman 
empire.  He  could  claim  thereby  protection 
from  insult  and  violence,  and  a  share  in  their 
interests  and  triumphs  which  made  every 
Roman  hold  his  head  higher  and  carry,  as  it 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  125 

were,  stamped  on  his  face,  the  consciousness 
of  his  proud  citizenship. 

.  is  somewhat  humiliating  to  think  how 
little  we  claim  our  rights  as  citizens  of  a 
greater  commonwealth,  how  little  its  conquests 
affect  us,  its  progress  helps  us,  its  interests 
move  us,  its  influences  cheer  us  ;  there  it  is, 
an  exaggerated,  distorted,  unreal  impression, 
an  impalpable  phantom  in  the  night  of  death  ; 
whereas,  could  we  but  feel  it,  it  encircles  us  in 
its  strength,  protects  us  by  its  laws,  enriches 
the  paths  of  life,  regulates  our  activities,  uses 
our  powers,  and  smoothes  the  bed  of  death— 
this  commonwealth  of  beneficence,  felt  rather 
than  seen  ;  by  reason  of  which  the  world  is  a 
better  place  to  you  and  to  me  than  it  would 
otherwise  have  been  ;  whereby,  of  the  Lord’s 
mercies,  we  are  not  consumed,  nor  wander 
hopelessly  from  the  path. 


While  sunk  in  sin  and  whelmed  with  strife, 

We  lose  the  gift  of  endless  life.” 

This  inability  to  realise  Heaven  is  surely  one 
part  of  what  has  been  described  as  the  poverty 
of  life.  .  “We  can  make  much  of  life,"  it  has 
been  said,  “  if  we  have  much  soul."  To  some, 
life  is  only  real  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  field  for 
appetite  and  passion,  a  place  for  eating,  and 
di  inking,  and  satisfaction.  The  wide  fields  of 


126 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


art  and  poetry  are  practically  non-existent  to 
them.  Science  with  its  fascinating  discoveries, 
history  with  its  moving  panorama  passing 
over  familiar  scenes,  all  the  various  depart¬ 
ments  of  human  intelligence,  are  a  blank  or  a 
positive  horror.  They  “think  that  it  is  to 
give  them  wood  to  hew,  and  water  to  draw, 
that  the  pine  forests  cover  the  mountains  like 
the  shadow  of  God,  and  the  great  rivers  move 
like  His  Eternity.”  While  to  others,  life  is 
only  a  business  warehouse,  touched  by  none  of 
the  generous  impulses  of  self-devotion,  stirred 
and  quickened  by  no  sympathy  with  human 
life  around  it.  Virtue  becomes  to  them  the 
highest  form  of  utilitarian  self-aggrandise¬ 
ment  ;  no  man  will  do  you  any  good  except  for 
his  own  interest ;  merit  becomes  merely  one 
man’s  opinion  of  another,  self-devotion  a  mere 
fanaticism,  liberality  an  ignorance  of  the 
value  of  money,  and  good  works  generally  a 
dangerous  form  of  sin.  We  must  have  known 
men  who  live,  as  it  were,  in  only  a  corner 
of  their  possessions,  in  an  absolute  poverty 
of  resource,  fast  confined  in  a  narrow  cell, 
neither  understanding  nor  understood,  alone, 
apart  in  the  concourse  of  men,  surrounded  by 
wealth  which  they  cannot  appreciate,  with 
sources  of  enjoyment  they  know  not  how  to 
use,  with  instruments  of  beauty  which  they 
know  not  how  to  manipulate.  Can  any 


the  CITIZENSHIP  of  HEAVEN  127 

outward  poverty  compare  with  this  inner 
poverty  which  touches  not  the  circumstances 
of  life,  but  a  poverty  which  leaves  the 
wealthiest  beggared  in  thought  in  the  midst 
of  his  splendour,  and  the  wisest  destitute  of 
sympathy  in  the  midst  of  his  intellectual 
ti  iumph  ?  But  there  is  a  poverty  even  beyond 
this,  the  poverty  of  the  man  who  has  dropped 
out  of  touch  with  Heaven,  whose  thoughts  are 
bounded  by  this  earth,  whose  horizon  is  death, 
with  a  Heaven  beyond  in  which  practically  he 
has  ceased  to  believe,  who  has  no  cheering 
vision  of  a  central  controlling  movement,  no 
sense  of  heavenly  rights,  no  realisation  of 
heavenly  protection  ;  “  a  citizen  of  no  mean 
city,’’  still  he  lets  himself  be  bound,  insulted,  and 
imprisoned,  he  pays  to  it  no  duty,  it  owes  him 
no  privileges.  An  end  in  himself  to  himself, 
he  would  regard  a  present  Heaven  of  practical 
relationships  as  even  more  visionary  and 
unreal  than  a  future  Heaven,  which  offers  him 
neither  in  principle  nor  in  practice  any  appre¬ 
ciable  point  of  contact,  nor  stimulates  any 
strong  desire. 


II. 

If,  then  Heaven  lies  about  us  here,  to  be 
consciously  enjoyed  by  those  who  live  in  the 
lower  city,  and  to  be  more  fully  realised  when 


128 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


they  move  higher,  in  what  does  it  consist? 
How  does  it  make  itself  felt  ?  How  shall  we 
exercise  our  citizenship  and  enjoy  our  privi¬ 
leges  ?  (1)  As  citizens  of  Heaven  we  are  in  the 
immediate  presence  of  God.  “Whither  shall 
I  go  then  from  Thy  Spirit says  the  Psalmist, 
“  or  whither  shall  I  go  then  from  Thy 
Presence  ?  If  I  climb  up  into  Heaven,  Thou  art 
there  :  if  I  go  down  to  Hell,  Thou  art  there  also? 
if  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning,  and  remain 
in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea :  even  there 
also  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me  :  and  Thy  right 
hand  shall  hold  me.”  We  have  wondered,  it 
may  be,  in  the  visions  and  revelations  of 
Heaven  which  have  been  put  before  us,  how 
large  a  part  worship  seems  to  play  in  the 
occupation  of  the  blessed.  Worship  surely  is 
the  characteristic  occupation  of  the  soul  which 
has  realised  the  Presence  of  God ;  the  more 
we  are  able  to  see  Him,  the  more  we  shall 
be  driven  to  worship,  until  in  Heaven  above, 
when  our  eyes  have  been  accustomed  to  face 
the  light,  and  we  are  more  and  more  able  to 
see  Him  as  He  is,  worship  becomes  almost 
the  absorbing  occupation  of  the  redeemed. 
And  so  here,  the  more  we  feel  God’s  Presence 
the  more  we  shall  be  attracted  to  worship 
Him.  It  is  when  worship  has  been  degraded 
into  a  mere  hearing  of  sounds,  or  listening  to 
a  human  voice,  or  an  intellectual  posture  of 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  129 

the  mind,  that  it  becomes  weary  and  insipid. 
Now  with  an  effort  we  have  to  force  ourselves 
to  worship  as  a  duty,  but  the  more  we  can  feel 
His  Presence,  the  more  we  shall  be  impelled  to 
it  as  a  pleasure,  and  be  able  to  realise  how  it 
may  possibly  be  that  the  satisfaction  of  the 
highest  part  of  our  being  may  be  the  highest 
joy,  and  to  worship  God  without  distraction, 
and  enjoy  His  Presence  without  fear,  may 
be  the  highest  conception  of  Heaven.  This 
Presence  of  God,  how  it  was  meant  to  enrich 
and  beautify  all  our  life  !  Account  for  it  as 
you  will,  how  many  of  the  Christian  martyrs 
again  and  again  experienced  a  peace  and  even 
joy  under  the  most  cruel  tortures,  to  the  per¬ 
plexity  and  exasperation  of  their  enemies,  and 
they  said  it  was  brought  to  them  by  the 
Presence  of  God.  Explain  it  as  you  will,  men 
and  women  have  lingered  on  in  abject  want, 
suffering,  and  affliction,  in  circumstances  from 
which  every  ray  of  earthly  comfort  seemed  to 
have  gone,  not  merely  in  sullen  resignation, 
but  in  joyful  acquiescence  and  holy  calm,  so 
that  the  room  of  suffering  has  sometimes  been 
the  brightest  room  in  the  whole  house,  and 
they  will  tell  you  that  it  was  the  Presence  of 
God  that  brought  this  calm.  There  may  be  in 
the  lives  of  many  of  you  memories  of  a 
pleasure  which  you  cannot  define,  of  a  satis¬ 
faction  which  you  cannot  analyse,  days  when 

10 


130 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


you  did  not  look  for  pleasure,  but  yet  you 
found  joy ;  days  when  all  seemed  dark,  and  yet 
there  rose  up  light  in  the  darkness ;  days 
which  you  can  only  look  back  upon  as  “  days 
of  the  Son  of  Man,”  when  life  was  illumined 
by  a  heavenly  glow,  and  filled  with  a  satis¬ 
faction  which  you  had  hitherto  failed  to  reach, 
and  you  trace  in  them  the  Presence  of  God. 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  mystery  of  natural 
beauty  all  around  us,  of  beauty  in  art,  of 
beauty  wherever  we  see  it  ?  What  is  beauty, 
and  what  does  it  mean  ?  Is  it  for  nothing  or 
by  a  fortuitous  combination  of  causes  that 
God  gives  us  the  daily  pageant  of  sunrise  and 
sunset,  lighting  up  fields  and  hedges,  sea  and 
mountain,  transforming  the  very  squalor  of 
the  streets  and  courts  of  the  city,  and  speaking 
to  the  hearts  of  those  who  can  feel,  to  the 
eyes  of  all  that  can  see  ?  Is  it  for  nothing  that 
God  has  put  His  mantle  of  flowers  between  us 
and  the  bareness  of  the  earth,  and  His  veil  of 
clouds  between  us  and  the  blinding  brightness 
of  the  sky?  It  is  the  same  God  who  speaks 
to  us  out  of  the  poetry  of  the  Bible,  who  speaks 
to  us  out  of  the  beauty  of  the  world ;  and  He 
who  makes  the  flower  to  glow  speaks  to  us 
out  of  the  beauty  of  art,  the  beauty  of  music, 
the  beauty  of  moral  character.  Trace  beauty 
wherever  you  see  it  far  enough,  and  it 
will  lead  you  into  the  Presence  of  God 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  131 


until  you  forget  self  and  forget  your  needs, 
and  praise  Him  for  what  He  is,  and  adore  Him 
for  His  transcendent  Majesty,  so  that  there 
mingles  with  the  voice  of  supplication  and  the 
voice  of  gratitude  the  voice  of  thanksgiving, 
which  can  only  express  itself  in  the  words  of 
the  Seraphic  hymn,  “The  fulness  of  the  whole 
earth  is  His  glory.”  To  those  who  can  feel  the 
Presence  of  God  as  it  encircles  us  with  its  power 
and  beauty,  Heaven  itself  has  begun. 

(2)  But  as  citizens  of  Heaven  we  do  more  than 
repose  in  the  Presence  of  God  ;  we  rest  under 
His  protection.  Heaven  is  the  great  city  of 
refuge,  where  no  thief  approacheth,  neither 
moth  corrupteth.  And  the  protection  of 
Heaven  is  begun  here  to  those  who  claim  its 
privileges  and  have  a  right  to  its  citizenship. 
It  is  a  sad  spectacle  to  see  the  unwilling 
sinner  driven  away  captive  by  sins  which  are 
too  strong  for  him,  with  a  system  of  morality 
clear  and  well  defined,  torn  up  and  tossed 
about  like  straws  before  the  wind  upon  the 
wild  waves  of  passion.  It  is  sad  to  see  man, 
made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God,  a  free¬ 
man  of  the  empire  of  Heaven,  marched  away 
like  a  slave  beaten  and  condemned  by  evil. 
We  ourselves  before  now,  it  may  be,  have  sat 
down  paralyzed  before  evils  which  we  seemed 
powerless  to  surmount,  before  habits  which 
we  had  failed  to  eradicate,  beaten  in  spite 


132  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


of  ourselves,  and  at  last  acquiescing  in  a  lower 
standard,  thinking  the  higher  life  to  be  im¬ 
possible,  perhaps  undesirable,  yet  haunted  by 
the  idea  that  we  had  failed  of  the  highest,  and 
were  maimed  in  our  powers.  Surely  the 
citizenship  of  Heaven,  the  presence  and  the 
inspiration  of  Heaven,  ought  to  make  itself 
felt  here.  “Is  it  lawful  for  you  to  scourge  a 
man  that  is  a  Roman,  and  uncondemned  ?  ” 
This  is  what  a  Roman  citizen  might  say.  “  Is 
it  lawful  for  you  to  scourge  a  citizen  of 
Heaven,  and  uncondemned  ?  ”  This  is  what  a 
Christian  may  say.  All  around  us  and  about 
us,  did  we  but  feel  it,  is  the  protection  of 
Heaven.  There  is  no  divided  empire  here. 
God  has  not  ceded  his  rights  in  certain  pro¬ 
vinces  and  departments  of  human  life.  God 
does  not  say  to  a  man,  “  You  were  born  bad, 
you  have  lived  bad,  and  in  all  human  pro¬ 
bability  you  will  die  bad  ;  you  are  the  victim 
of  hereditary  contagion  of  sin.  You  cannot 
help  yourself,  and  I  cannot  help  you.”  No, 
God  has  not  resigned  His  empire  over  the 
mysteries  of  transmitted  life.  The  contagion 
has  been  noted,  and  the  remedy  has  been 
planned.  The  transmission  of  characteristics 
and  the  transmission  of  taint  has  been  seized  in 
His  hands,  and  made  the  basis  of  spiritual 
transformation.  God  does  not  say  to  a  man, 

‘  I  can  do  nothing  for  you  ;  you  are  living  in 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  133 


a  barbarous  region,  where  you  have  no  chance 
of  development,  where  the  atmosphere  is  evil 
and  the  contagion  wholly  poisonous,  where 
only  evil  can  spring  up,  and  only  evil  thrive, 
and  only  evil  survive  to  the  end.’  He  has  not 
surrendered  His  empire  over  the  barbarous 
regions  of  the  earth.  As  if  to  show  us  from 
time  to  time  how  wide  is  the  extent  of  the 
atmosphere  of  Heaven,  He  shows  us  a  saintly 
life  shining  out  in  the  wreck  of  a  moral 
avalanche,  or  thrusting  its  head  like  a 
flower  through  the  snow.  It  is  here,  indeed, 
that  God  raises  the  hardy  sons  of  His 
empire  with  an  endurance  and  force  of 
character  which  results  from  heavenly  influ¬ 
ence  acting  on  adverse  circumstances  ;  it 
is  here  that  He  raises  His  heroes,  as  of 
old  He  raised  His  judges  out  of  the  tribe 
nearest  to  and  most  threatened  by  the  enemy. 
No,  God  cannot  yield  any  part  of  His  empire 
to  a  specious  fatalism.  God  cannot  suffer  that 
men  should  reproach  His  justice  and  love  with 
a  cruel  predestination  to  eternal  loss  because 
He  has  planted  His  citizens  amidst  adverse 
surroundings.  This  is  to  return  to  the  barest 
Calvinism.  Ah,  my  brethren,  do  not  listen 
to  the  pleadings  of  slavish  impotence.  The 
child  of  God,  wherever  he  may  be,  is  free — 

“  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how, 

Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine.” 


134 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


When  you  give  way  to  that  violent  temper 
you  are  not  the  victim  of  a  congenital  passion. 
You  are  a  free  citizen  of  Heaven  submitting 
to  be  bound  where  God  has  made  you  free. 
When  you  fail  miserably  to  curb  your  appe¬ 
tite,  and  are  driven  along  with  the  throng 
under  the  sounding  lash  of  Satan,  you  are  not 
the  victim  of  society ;  you  would  not  have 
done  better  in  other  circumstances.  The  will 
has  become  enslaved  which  God  made  free, 
and  the  citizen  of  Heaven  is  yielding  to  a 
power  which  has  no  right  to  enthral  him. 
Many  and  many  a  soul  looks  forward  in  impo¬ 
tent  longing  for  a  time  of  freedom  from  over¬ 
mastering  sin.  Let  him  listen  to  St.  Paul — 
“  Our  citizenship  is  in  Heaven.”  No  taint  of 
nature,  no  force  of  circumstances,  no  onslaught 
of  temptation,  can  overwhelm  the  citizen 
of  Heaven  who  throws  himself  back  on  his 
citizenship  and  relies  on  his  rights.  There  is 
a  strong  government  all  around  him,  and  a 
firm  protection  that  reaches  the  very  utmost 
edges  of  the  territory  of  duty.  There  is  peace, 
we  all  know  in  Heaven.  But  we  may  also 
know  that  “When  a  man’s  ways  please  the 
Lord,  He  maketh  even  his  enemies  to  be  at 
peace  with  him.”  1  Seat  the  will  firmly  on  the 
throne,  and  trust  in  the  Presence  of  God.  And 
then  even  an  evil  taint  may  be  transformed 


1  Prov.  xvi.  7. 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  135 


into  power,  and  an  evil  surrounding  be  the 
stern  mother  of  a  character  which  out  of  evil 
has  drawn  only  strength. 

(3)  “  Our  citizenship  is  in  Heaven  ” ;  our  view 
instinctively  widens  as  we  grasp  these  words. 
Heaven,  then,  is  not  a  hermit’s  cell,  whither  I 
escape  by  resolutely  turning  my  back  on  all 
that  hinders  or  detains  me,  which  I  reach  at 
last  by  casting  off  every  encumbrance,  and 
every  duty,  by  a  feverish  anxiety  to  secure  my 
personal  salvation.  Heaven  is  a  city,  and 
Heaven  has  its  constitution  and  its  citizens  all 
around  me.  I  move  as  one  of  a  vast  throng. 

I  move  as  one  who  is  influenced  by  the  lives  of 
others,  and  who,  in  turn,  sheds  an  influence 
out  of  his  own  life,  as  he  fills  a  post  in  a  vast 
community,  and  discharges  a  function  in  a 
great  commonwealth.  There  it  lies  in  the  Creed, 
practically  unmeaning  to  most  people  who 
pronounce  it,  virtually  otiose,  and  redundant  in 
a  document  otherwise  so  condensed — “I  believe 
in  the  communion  of  saints.”  How  seldom  we 
pause  to  think  of  what  we  owe  to  the  past ;  if 
we  think  of  the  men  of  the  past  at  all  it  is  to 
smile  at  their  maimed  life  and  their  imperfect 
ideas,  their  crude  civilisation,  their  feeble 
grasp  upon  the  treasures  of  life.  But  what 
we  owe  to  the  past,  daily  and  hourly,  who 
shall  say?  The  very  Creed  which  we  utter 
was  hammered  out  by  men  who  had  reached 


136  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


its  truth  in  their  own  experience,  and  never 
rested  until  they  had  made  it  explicit,  using 
themselves  all  the  stored-up  riches  of  the  past, 
so  that  “  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  the 
synthesis  and  summary  of  all  that  was  highest 
in  the  Hebrew  and  Hellenic  conception  of  God 
fused  into  union  by  the  electric  touch  of  the 
Incarnation.  What  a  debt  do  we  owe  to  the 
past  again  in  those  who  did  not  think  of  this 
island  of  ours  as  merely  a  place  to  plunder, 
but  a  region  to  be  evangelised  with  the  good 
news  of  salvation !  What  a  debt  we  owe 
to  the  great  men  who  have  made  this  king¬ 
dom  what  it  is,  who  built  us  churches,  who 
endowed  our  holy  Religion  with  their  money 
foi  ever,  who  adorned  it  with  the  beauty  of  a 
good  life  !  What  a  debt  we  owe  to  that  cloud 
of  witnesses  drawn  up  from  the  rapid  river 
of  life,  its  stagnant  pools,  its  foul  marshes, 
until  they  became  the  glory  of  the  firmament 
of  the  Christian  Church  ! 

If  we  paused  to  see  how  many  lives  and 
influences  act  upon  our  own  character  alone, 
we  should  see  how  great  is  the  company  which 
surrounds  us  now  in  the  citizenship  of  Heaven. 
Education  opens  for  us  a  door  to  the  great 
minds  of  the  world,  of  the  past  and  present, 
who  being  dead  yet  speak  to  us  in  books,  or 
who,  living  and  unknown  to  us,  are  yet  with 
us  in  their  writings.  The  influence  of  books 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  137 


alone  might  shed  around  us  a  very  atmosphere 
of  Heaven,  and  prevent  us  from  ever  feeling 
lonely  and  forsaken.  While  we  are  painfully 
conscious  of  the  encroachments  that  Satan  is 
ever  making  here,  in  infidel  books,  in  immoral 
books,  in  books  which  destroy  moral  dignity, 
frivolous,  worthless,  degrading,  in  the  almost 
limitless  company  to  which  education  has 
introduced  us,  it  is  our  own  fault  if  we  fail 
to  surround  ourselves  with  the  company 
which  speaks  the  dignified,  stately  language 
of  Heaven.  And  if  education  brings  us  the 
companionship  of  books,  the  mind  can  also 
give  us  the  inspiration  of  example.  The 
Church  has  her  calendar  of  saints  who  have 
passed  through  the  same  scenes  as  those 
through  which  we  are  passing,  and  out  of  the 
same  passions  and  the  same  temptations  have 
produced,  by  the  grace  of  God,  the  dignity 
of  a  saintly  life.  The  world  has  its  heroes, 
who  have  made  tradition,  its  philanthropists, 
who  have  consecrated  benevolence,  its 
pioneers,  and  explorers,  and  inventors,  who 
have  developed  its  resources.  The  good  life 
is  not  the  lonely  contest  we  are  sometimes 
tempted  to  think  it,  not  the  mere  struggling 
through  the  waves  to  the  unknown  shore, 
on  a  thin  plank  of  life,  saved  out  of  the  full 
ship  from  which  we  have  tossed  pleasure  after 
pleasure,  the  wheat  and  the  tackling,  and  our 


138 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


very  self,  in  order  to  be  saved.  The  com¬ 
munion  of  saints  is  an  influence  all  around  us, 
it  is  Heaven  begun  on  earth  ;  only  it  is  in¬ 
cumbent  on  us  to  make  the  good  life  more 
a  present  power,  to  let  our  light  shine  before 
men,  that  they  may  see  our  good  works,  and 
glorify  our  Father  which  is  in  Heaven.  If  we 
feel  lonely,  there  are  others  lonely  too ;  every 
good  life  fearlessly  lived,  makes  it  easier  for 
some  other  life  to  glorify  God.  When  we 
approach  God  it  is  as  “  Our  Father,”  and 
we  ask  God  to  have  mercy  upon  us,  not  upon 
me.  It  is  a  thing  to  labour  for,  and  live  for,  to 
make  the  signs  of  God’s  kingdom,  its  cries  of 
victory,  and  its  shouts  of  triumph,  its  voices  of 
blessing,  and  its  beautiful  strains  just  as 
prominent  as  the  shouts  of  ribaldry,  and  the 
roar  of  vice,  the  hideousness  and  the  course- 
ness  and  the  ugliness  of  sin,  which  make  the 
citizen  of  Heaven  now  seem  but  a  stranger  and 
a  pilgrim  in  an  alien  world.  Heaven  is  worth 
living  for,  but  Heaven  is  no  dream  of  a  sick 
man  who  has  lost,  or  of  a  prisoner  who  has 
failed,  or  of  a  visionary  who  cannot  enjoy 
life,  Heaven  is  around  us  and  about  us  now, 
and  when  we  die,  the  earth  will  fall  away  from 
us  like  a  jealous  curtain  which  has  hid  some 
grand  beauty  ;  and  Paradise  will  lead  us  into 
the  full  enjoyment  of  the  perfect  Vision.  God 
makes  up  the  beauty  and  joy  of  Heaven,  and 


THE  CITIZENSHIP  OF  HEAVEN  139 


God  is  here  to  be  found  at  the  end  of  the 
avenues  of  worship,  and  at  the  end  of  every 
path  of  true  beauty,  which  ends  in  Him.  The 
absence  of  evil  is  a  negative  joy  of  Heaven  ;  it 
means  the  omnipotence  of  the  hand  of  God, 
and  that  hand  is  omnipotent  here. 

Heaven  is  filled  with  the  glorious  cloud  of 
saints,  and  is  rich  in  the  citizenship  of  the 
blessed.  Here,  too,  consciously  or  uncon¬ 
sciously,  each  man  moves  onwards,  formed  and 
fashioned  by  the  countless  influences  of  many 
lives.  Do  we  hope  at  last  to  go  to  Heaven? 
If  we  will  but  “  find  God,”  we  are  there 
already. 


V II 


THE  KING 


VII 

THE  KING 

A  Sermon  Preached  in  S.  Paul’s 
Cathedral  in  August,  1902. 

“  God  save  tlie  King.” — 1  Sam.  x.  3. 

It  is  difficult  while  passing  through  stirring 
events  to  estimate  them  at  their  true  import¬ 
ance.  We  cannot  get  the  right  historical 
perspective,  because  we  stand  too  close  to  the 
mountains  and  valleys  through  which  we  are 
journeying  ;  and  so  it  has  been  that  not  un- 
frequently  the  actors  in  some  of  the  greatest 
dramas  of  history  have  been  unconscious  of 
the  significance  of  the  acts  which  they  were 
performing.  So  we  read  of  the  disciples  of 
our  Lord,  who  took  part  in  the  historical 
scenes  of  Palm  Sunday,  “  These  things  under¬ 
stood  not  His  disciples  at  the  first :  but  when 
Jesus  was  glorified,  then  remembered  they 
that  these  things  were  written  of  Him,  and 

143 


144 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


that  they  had  done  these  things  unto  Him.”  1 
Our  Blessed  Lord  is  constrained  to  impress 
upon  His  followers  the  importance  of  events 
in  which  they  were  participators,  and  whose 
significance  they  might  easily  misunderstand 
when  He  says,  “  Blessed  are  the  eyes  which 
see  the  things  that  ye  see :  for  I  tell  you,  that 
many  prophets  and  kings  have  desired  to  see 
those  things  which  ye  see,  and  have  not  seen 
them  ;  and  to  hear  those  things  which  ye  hear, 
and  have  not  heard  them.”  2  No  one,  however, 
who  thinks  at  all  is  likely  to  forget  the  scenes 
through  which  we  have  been  passing  this 
year.  It  does  not  need  a  great  deal  of 
historical  acumen  to  see  that  the  Coronation 
of  King  Edward  VII.  of  England  will  stand 
out  even  in  our  remarkable  national  history 
as  an  event  of  peculiar  and  pathetic  import¬ 
ance.  We  have  been  accused  by  a  friendly,  if 
somewhat  cynical,  critic  of  applying  to  our¬ 
selves  as  a  nation  all  the  promises  of  favour 
and  the  dignity  of  responsibility  which  God 
bestowed  on  His  chosen  people,  the  Jews,  in 
the  days  of  their  faithfulness  and  trial.  It 
would  be  strange  if  we  had  reaped  no  benefit 
from  our  national  study  of  and  veneration 
for  the  Bible  ;  and  without  claiming  for 
this  country  that  it  enjoys  the  privilege  of 
being  a  nation  dear  to  God,  and  a  direct  heir 
1  S.  John  xii,  16.  2  S.  Luke  x.  23,  24. 


THE  KING 


145 


of  His  promises,  yet  we  have  learned  to  read 
in  the  warnings  and  punishments,  in  the 
blessings  and  promises  which  He  gave  to  the 
chosen  people  of  old,  the  signs  of  God’s 
Presence  and  the  interposition  of  His  hand  in 
national  events.  We  have  learned  that 
nations,  as  well  as  individuals,  live  in  His 
sight  charged  with  responsibilities  for  which 
they  will  be  judged.  We  have  learned  that 
national  vices  are  followed  by  national 
punishment;  we  have  learned  that  national 
neglect  of  religion  is  likely  to  precede  a 
national  downfall.  And  so  we  have  felt  in  the 
great  disappointment  which  fell  on  us  in  the 
early  summer  something  more  than  a  dis¬ 
location  of  plans  which  spoiled  the  pleasure  of 
all,  and  was  of  serious  consequence  to  many. 
We  have  learned  to  see  in  it  the  interposition 
of  God.  Everything  was  ready  for  the  Coro¬ 
nation  but  ourselves.  And  God  in  His  love 
has  interposed,  until  we  learned  by  greater 
humility  and  seriousness  how  to  take  our 
part  in  the  solemn  plighting  of  troth  between 
the  King  and  his  people,  in  the  great  con¬ 
secration  of  our  Sovereign  to  God,  so  that  we 
could  learn  that  the  title  with  which  we 
honour  our  monarchs  is  no  vain  and  insignifi¬ 
cant  form  of  words,  but  that  our  anointed 
Sovereign  may  be  called  without  impropriety, 
“  our  most  religious  and  gracious  King.” 

11 


146 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


My  brethren,  if  the  Coronation  which  God 
Almighty  has  now  allowed  us  to  witness  was 
shorn  somewhat  of  its  outward  magnificence, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  it  gained  wonderfully  in 
deep  spiritual  solemnity.  A  king  whom  God 
has  restored  to  us  from  the  jaws  of  death  was 
crowned  in  the  presence  of  his  people,  who 
had  asked  him  from  the  Lord,  and  who  believed 
that  God  had  been  gracious  unto  their  prayers  ; 
and,  therefore,  it  is  well  surely,  at  a  time  like 
this,  that  we  should  once  more  remind  our¬ 
selves  of  the  real  meaning  of  the  ceremony  of 
Coronation,  in  which  every  inhabitant  of  this 
Empire  is  directly  concerned.  Archaeologists 
will  tell  us  of  the  great  antiquity  and  religious 
significance  of  the  rites  of  sacring.  Historians 
will  help  us  to  link  the  present  to  the  past. 
Cynics  will  tell  us  that  the  Coronation  is  a 
survival  of  obsolete  ideas,  and  that  the  whole 
nation  is  greater  than  any  one  monarch.  The 
foolish  and  light-hearted  will  bid  us  congratu¬ 
late  ourselves  that  we  have  seen  an  interest¬ 
ing  pageant,  and  a  brilliant  if  maimed  display. 
But  surely  as  religious  people,  in  a  matter  in 
which  we  have  seen  so  visibly  displayed  the 
hand  of  God,  we  ought  to  seek  for  its  moral 
significance,  and  its  religious  importance,  and 
to  see  if  we  can  learn  to  say  with  something 
more  than  loyalty,  something  more  permanent 
than  enthusiasm — “  God  save  the  King.” 


THE  KING 


147 


I. 

What  then  does  the  person  of  the  King 
represent  to  us,  clothed  with  all  the  insignia 
and  majesty  of  supreme  greatness?  What  of 
the  crown,  the  sceptre  and  the  orb,  the  sword, 
the  sacerdotal  vestments,  the  anointing  oil — 
are  they  so  many  theatrical  properties  from 
the  archaeological  and  historical  treasuries? 
W e  know  better  than  this ;  we  know  that 
besides  his  personal  qualities,  the  King  is  the 
representative  and  embodiment  of  certain  im¬ 
personal  and  important  principles,  and  among 
these  we  reckon  first  in  the  person  of  the 
King  the  majesty  and  dignity  of  law.  He  is 
the  fountain  of  a  nation’s  law,  the  supreme 
embodiment  of  its  liberty  and  privileges  based 
on  law.  In  looking  back  over  our  chequered 
history  we  see  the  fierce  nature  of  the  conflict 
which  has  raged  round  this  conception  of  the 
regal  office.  Our  King  does  not  reign  as  a 
despot  in  defiance  of  his  people’s  rights,  but 
as  the  living  embodiment  of  all  that  they 
most  venerate  and  cling  to.  There  are  many 
sad  epitaphs  to  be  found  in  our  cathedrals  and 
churches,  telling  of  quenched  hopes  and  for¬ 
feited  ideals ;  there  are  monuments  which 
breathe  still  the  anguish  of  personal  sorrow 
and  which  seems  to  tell  of  a  life  from  which 


148 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


tlie  sunshine  has  gone  for  ever.  There  is  that 
touching  gravestone  in  the  cloisters  of  West¬ 
minster,  where  a  broken  heart  pours  out  its 
sorrow  over  the  grave  of  a  much-loved 
daughter — “  a  dear  child,”  so  runs  the  simple 
inscription.  There  is  the  famous  miserimus  in 
the  cloisters  of  W orcester,  where  the  nameless 
occupant  of  a  grave,  trodden  by  the  feet  of 
passers-by,  has  willed  that  all  that  should  be 
known  of  him  is  his  great  misery.  But  there 
is  a  sadder  tomb  still  in  that  beautiful  Midland 
Cathedral,  which  looks  across  the  Severn  to 
where  the  sun  dips  behind  the  Malvern  Hills. 
And  that  is  the  grave  of  King  John.  There 
he  lies  in  front  of  the  high  altar,  in  glory  of 
sculpture  and  gold,  hoping  to  wrest  a  posthu¬ 
mous  protection  from  the  wrath  of  God,  by 
the  monk’s  frock  in  which  he  is  shrouded, 
seeking  the  companionship  of  saints  in  his 
death  whom  he  despised  and  dishonoured  in 
his  life. 

There  is,  perhaps,  none  of  our  kings  who 
for  his  personal  life  and  public  dishonour  is 
more  execrated.  In  him  it  was  by  force  and 
armed  compulsion  that  the  fount  of  law  which 
is  represented  by  the  idea  of  kingship  ran  in 
proper  channels,  and  answered  to  its  great 
ideals.  And  yet  if  King  John  were  alive 
to-day,  in  so  far  as  he  represented  our 
legitimate  rights  and  liberties,  we  should  still 


THE  KING 


149 


say,  “  God  save  the  King,”  because  we  should 
forget  the  indignity  of  the  man,  in  the  glory 
and  beauty  of  the  authority  with  which  he 
was  invested. 

My  brethren,  as  children  we  were  accus¬ 
tomed  to  read  history  with  an  eye  to  the 
stirring  incidents  of  the  battlefields,  and  the 
struggles  of  kings  and  people  in  all  the 
moving  incidents  of  the  public  tragedies 
which  surround  a  nation’s  growth,  and  as  we 
get  older  we  shall  find  that  these  struggles 
lose  none  of  their  interest,  they  gain  in 
importance,  as  the  conflict  of  liberty  with 
oppression,  of  order  with  disorder,  now  on 
this  side,  now  on  that.  We  mark  in  them  the 
gradual  evolution  of  a  clearer  idea  of  what  is 
meant  by  a  monarch,  in  his  supreme  character 
as  the  guardian  and  fountain  of  law ;  we  see 
the  diminution  by  slow  degrees  of  the  idea  of 
personal  irresponsible  power,  and  the  quench¬ 
ing  of  the  lust  of  greed  and  oppression,  and 
the  emerging  of  the  figure  of  dignity  and 
religion,  under  which  a  nation  venerates  the 
conception  of  her  liberty. 

My  brethren,  have  we  learned  yet  all  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  which  lie  expressed  in 
that  sacred  name  —  law?  When  the  old 
Greeks  looked  out  on  this  magnificent  universe 
in  which  all  things  perform  their  ordered 
functions,  they  called  the  world  by  a  name 


150 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


which  signified  order,  as  if  that  were  the 
main  and  pervading  characteristic  which  was 
stamped  upon  its  Divine  mechanism.  To 
them,  even  more  perfectly  than  to  the  Jew, 
“  The  heavens  declared  the  glory  of  God,  and 
the  firmament  showed  His  handiwork.”  “  The 
invisible  things  of  Him  from  the  creation  of 
the  world  (were)  clearly  seen,  being  understood 
by  the  things  that  were  made,  even  His 
eternal  power  and  Godhead.”  1  The  reign  of 
law,  of  perfect,  unswerving  law,  excited  their 
veneration  and  awe ;  it  was  magnificent,  it 
was  divine.  And  so  we  are  accustomed  still 
in  more  intimate  and  hidden  ways  to  trace 
the  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  regions  of 
order  and  discipline  within  the  soul.  The 
Spirit  of  God  which  once  moved  upon  the  face 
of  the  waters  when  order  emerged  from  chaos 
still  rules  over  the  hearts  and  lives  of  those 
who  give  themselves  up  to  His  gentle  guidance. 

My  brethren,  while  we  honour  this  great 
principle  of  law  and  order  in  the  person  of 
our  King,  whom  we  crown  and  consecrate, 
let  us  see  to  it  that  we  honour  every 
manifestation  of  it  in  our  own  lives.  It  is  a 
sorry  thing  to  contend  for  the  liberty  of  the 
subject,  and  maintain  the  long  conflict  for 
the  integrity  of  our  laws,  if  at  the  same  time 
we  are  living  the  life  of  slaves,  in  a  voluntary 

1  Rom.  1.  20. 


THE  KING 


151 


subjection  to  the  tyranny  of  evil.  The 
struggles  of  the  nation  for  freedom  and  for 
liberty  are  parelleled  in  the  life  of  many  a 
man  to-day,  with  a  very  diverse  issue  of  the 
conflict.  The  supremacy  of  law,  within  the 
circle  of  his  own  life,  is  the  inherent  birth¬ 
right  of  every  man.  We  are  born  free,  but 
the  issue  of  life’s  struggle  too  often  leaves 
us  slaves.  There  was  a  pathos  in  the  question 
which  Pilate  addressed  to  our  Blessed  Lord, 
who  was  brought  before  him,  in  all  the 
cruel  indignities  of  His  Passion,  “Art  Thou 
a  King,  then  ?  ”  1  The  Roman,  with  his  ideas 
of  luxury  and  magnificence,  freedom,  and 
even  licence,  could  hardly  bring  himself  to 
believe  in  a  King  crowned  with  thorns,  bound 
with  cords,  and  forsaken  by  all  outward 
insignia  of  royalty.  And  yet  there  reigned 
within  that  stricken  form  the  magnificent 
supremacy  which  belongs  to  a  perfect  man, 
of  which  Pilate  knew  but  little  and  valued 
less.  My  brethren,  at  least  let  us  say  “  God 
save  the  King”  with  the  lips  of  free-men. 
Let  us  at  least  venerate  the  fount  of  law, 
as  those  who  know  the  blessings  of  law  in 
our  inmost  selves.  It  is  a  turbulent  kingdom 
which  God  has  called  upon  you  to  rule. 
There  are  fierce  passions  which  were  designed 
to  serve  under  your  kingship,  which  are  only 

1  S.  John  xviii.  37. 


152 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


too  ready  to  rise  in  rebellion  and  oust  the 
ruler  from  his  throne.  There  sits  the  will, 
on  its  seat  of  authority,  guided  by  reason, 
and  illuminated  by  the  spirit.  Is  it  supreme 
within  its  own  domain  ?  There  are  some 
who  have  lost  all  control  over  the  rough 
and  tributary  senses,  who  cower  before  their 
vassal  Passion,  and  submit  their  will  to  the 
degradation  of  force.  There  are  some  who 
have  lost  large  portions  of  the  domain  of 
their  life,  who  have  submitted  to  see  fair 
fields  and  flourishing  territories  snatched 
away  from  the  dominion  of  the  will.  Not 
many  hundred  yards  from  this  Cathedral 
ther  e  once  existed  that  strang’e  region  known 
as  Alsatia,  with  which  the  pen  of  the  novelist 
and  the  brilliant  pages  of  Macaulay  have 
niade  us  familiar,  that  region  in  which  the 
king  s  writ  did  not  run,  the  abode  of  criminal 
disorder  and  vice.  So  many  a  man  has 
elevated  his  besetting  sin  into  an  Alsatia, 
an  abode  of  privileged  misdeeds,  where  the 
will  gives  no  order,  and  the  law  of  God 
makes  no  challenge. 

My  brethren,  at  this  Coronation  time  I 
appeal  for  a  larger  and  more  whole-hearted 
venei  ation  for  law  and  order  within  the 
kingdom  of  our  own  lives.  Let  us  have  no 
Alsatias,  no  privileged  sins,  no  times,  or 
places,  or  moods  which  are  outside  the 


THE  KING 


153 


beneficent  rule  of  law.  Let  us  bring  into 
captivity  every  thought  to  the  obedience  of 
Christ.  And  then  it  will  be,  as  men  who 
know  what  they  say,  who  know  what  law 
is,  in  this  world  of  God’s  creating,  who 
know  what  liberty  is  to  a  people,  and  what 
supremacy  means  to  the  will,  that  we  shall 
be  able  to  say,  “  God  save  the  King,”  and 
recognise  in  an  anointed  King  the  embodi¬ 
ment  of  our  greatest  national  treasure,  the 
sacredness  of  law  and  the  inviolability  of  our 
liberties. 


II. 

The  King,  once  more,  is  the  representative 
to  us  of  our  national  traditions.  The  history 
of  the  nation  hangs  round  it  like  a  necklace, 
studded  with  glorious  jewels,  which  represent 
the  traditions  which  have  been  worked  out 
of  its  long  and  chequered  career.  There  are 
memories  of  struggles  at  home  and  abi  oad, 
of  some  of  which  we  are  ashamed,  of  most 
of  which  we  are  proud.  We  remember  how, 
in  the  very  place  where  we  are  standing, 
the  expiring  struggle  of  heathenism,  the 
advancing  powers  of  Christianity,  the  bitter¬ 
ness  of  religious  and  civil  strife  have  all 
left  their  mark  on  history.  Here  kings  and 


154 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


queens  have  come  to  return  thanks  for 
national  mercies  received.  Within  only  the 
last  few  years,  we  remember  the  thanks¬ 
giving  service  for  the  King’s  recovery  from 
the  illness  which  threatened  his  life  when 
he  was  Prince  of  Wales.  We,  in  more  recent 
times,  still  have  seen  here  intercessions, 
supplications,  and  thanksgivings,  in  times 
of  our  tribulation,  and  in  times  of  our  wealth. 
Nelson  and  Wellington  lie  buried  in  our 
crypt,  to  remind  us  of  the  European  struggle 
which  made  such  an  impression  on  our 
national  sentiment  and  showed  England  the 
great  destiny  she  was  called  upon  to  fulfil. 
Many  of  us  can  remember  the  horrors  and 
anxieties  of  the  Crimean  War,  and  the  still 
greater  horrors  of  the  Indian  Mutiny.  And 
we  thank  God  that  while  seldom  free  from 
some  form  of  war  in  some  part  of  our 
vast  empire,  God  has  mercifully  shielded  us 
from  the  horrors  of  war  in  our  own  island. 
The  battle  of  Sedgemoor  in  Somerset,  fought 
in  the  Rebellion  of  Monmouth  in  the  days 
of  James  II.,  is  generally  regarded  as  the 
last  serious  battle  fought  in  our  own  land ; 
for  which  we  may,  indeed,  thank  God,  when 
we  see  what  war  means,  as,  for  instance,  to 
the  sunny  plains  of  France  in  the  awful 
struggle  of  1870,  or  in  South  Africa  in  the 
horrors  and  destruction  of  the  war  now 


THE  KING 


155 


happily  and  gloriously  concluded.  Through 
long  centuries  of  struggle,  of  blessings 
received  and  warnings  given,  we  do  feel 
that  there  has  emerged  a  great  tradition 
which  we  are  pledged  to  maintain,  and  of 
which  our  crowned  King  is  the  personal 
representative.  We  do  not  as  a  nation  care 
much  for  glory ;  it  is  an  evanescent  and 
intoxicating  sentiment  which  is  foreign  to 
our  character.  We  seem,  on  the  contrary, 
to  be  almost  cynically  indifferent  to  the 
hostile  criticism  of  our  national  actions, 
which  we  are  at  the  same  time  powerless 
to  avert.  But,  thank  God,  there  has  emerged 
as  the  permanent  tradition  of  our  race,  and 
as  the  prevailing  symbolism  of  our  national 
flag,  the  sense  of  duty.  Any  Englishman, 
however  humble  a  post  he  may  occupy  in 
the  Empire,  feels  that  he  has  to  maintain 
the  tradition  of  law  and  justice  which  we 
have  secured  for  ourselves  at  such  a  cost, 
and  through  such  long  centuries  of  struggle. 
The  motto  which  is  traced  beneath  the  three 
feathers  of  the  Prince  of  Wales’s  well-known 
crest,  “I  serve,”  may  well  be  taken  as  the 
motto  of  the  whole  nation.  It  is  not  true 
that  as  a  nation  we  are  urged  forward  by 
a  lust  of  annexation,  and  a  land-fever  of 
conquest.  Those  little  marks  of  red  on  the 
map  of  the  world  at  least  represent  places 


156 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


where  there  are  equal  rights  for  all  who 
come  under  the  protection  of  our  flag ; 
where  politically,  at  all  events,  and  however 
imperfectly,  we  are  spelling  out  the  lesson 
which  S.  Paul,  under  the  inspiration  of  God, 
imparted  to  his  sceptical  audience  at  Athens  : 
“  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 
of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the 
earth.” 1  However  we  fail  in  its  practical 
application,  however  imperfect  may  be  our 
realisation  of  our  responsibilities,  still  it  is 
something  to  feel  that  it  is  the  great 
tradition  of  our  race,  that  England  expects 
that  every  man  shall  do  his  duty,  and  that 
greed  and  injustice,  where  and  if  they  exist, 
exist  only  in  defiance  of  our  most  cherished 
national  principles.  My  brethren,  both 
nations  and  men  are  the  better  for  being  the 
guardian  of  a  tradition.  The  constraining 
force  of  an  inherent  nobility,  the  sacred 
compulsion  of  loyalty  to  a  tradition,  are 
immense  powers  for  good  to  the  nation  and 
to  the  individual  who  are  influenced  by  them. 
We  recognise  it  in  the  national  monuments 
which  we  erect  to  keep  alive  the  glorious 
memories  of  the  past ;  we  recognise  it  in 
the  almost  religious  homage  which  we  pay 
to  the  national  flag ;  we  recognise  it  in  the 
devoted  loyalty  shown  to  the  regimental 


1  Acts  xvii.  26. 


THE  KING 


157 


colours,  such  as  those  which  repose  here  in 
this  House  of  God,  now  that  their  work  is 
done,  and  only  the  inspiration  of  their 
tradition  remains.  It  is  with  a  pang  that 
we  see  the  names  of  noble  families  tarnished, 
or  a  son  bringing  discredit  on  the  fair  name 
of  his  father.  Every  man  is  better  for  a 
tradition  in  his  life.  The  novelist  has  traced 
for  us  with  merciless  accuracy  the  career 
of  a  man  who  fell  from  bad  to  worse,  largely 
because  he  had  no  tradition  in  his  life  ;  who 
never  could  remember  the  time  when  he 
was  not  indolent  and  self -pleasing ;  who  had 
no  battlefields  of  struggle,  no  records  of 
victory  to  help  him  with  the  strength  of  a 
tradition,  or  the  memories  of  outlived  sorrows. 
And  so  he  fell,  as  one  who  is  alone  when  he 
falls,  and  who  has  nothing  to  keep  him  up, 
or  anything  of  which  he  should  say,  ‘  God 
forbid  that  I  should  be  false  to  my  better  self, 
or  betray  my  nobler  past.’ 

My  brethren,  if  you  have  such  traditions  in 
your  life,  cherish  them,  I  beseech  you.  They 
will  be  as  much  a  source  of  strength  to  you 
as  the  memory  of  his  victory  over  the  lion 
and  the  bear  in  childhood  was  a  strength  to 
David  in  his  greater  struggle  with  the  giant. 
Cherish  the  home  memories,  which  are  often 
so  great  a  tradition  to  Englishmen.  Think 
how  often  it  is  recorded  in  the  history  of  a 


158 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


king’s  success,  or  more  often,  alas !  of  his 
failure,  in  the  Bible,  that  his  mother’s  name 
was  this  or  that.  Think  when  you  are 
tempted  to  forget  honour  and  manhood,  and 
to  sell  your  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage, 
of  the  shame  and  sorrow  which  the  know¬ 
ledge  of  such  treachery  would  bring  at  home. 
Think  of  it  as  a  betrayal  of  family  honour, 
and  as  an  impiety  to  some  of  the  most  sacred 
memories  of  your  life.  Here  is  one  of  the 
strongest  ties  which  bind  a  man  to  purity  and 
truth,  that  there  are  prophecies  which  have 
gone  before  on  him,1  and  that  he  grasps  at  his 
sordid  pleasure  only  by  pushing  aside  the 
glory  of  his  best  tradition.  There  are  also 
definite  religious  traditions  within  the  lives  of 
most  of  us  which  claim  our  loyalty  and  up¬ 
hold  our  integrity.  Days  of  solemn  resolution 
and  especial  grace,  such  as  the  day  of  our 
Confirmation,  days  of  the  Son  of  Man  with 
all  their  bright  glow,  such  as  the  days  of  our 
Communions.  To  these  we  owe  the  homage 
of  loyalty,  as  the  very  framework  of  our 
better  existence,  on  which  is  built  up  that  self 
which  is  eternal,  and  the  life  which  is  to  last 
for  ever.  But  every  one  who  is  not  a  mere 
creature  of  circumstances,  tossed  to  and  fro 
on  the  rough  waves  of  the  world,  has  his  own 
special  traditions,  which  will  stand  him  in 

1  1  Tim.  i.  18. 


THE  KING 


159 


good  stead  in  the  battle  of  life,  and  will  help 
him  in  the  evolution  of  character.  Under  the 
name  of  principle  we  all  of  us  recognise  with 
an  instinctive  homage  a  tradition  which  it  is 
only  honourable  for  a  man  to  maintain.  A 
temptation  to  a  degraded  sensuality  loses  half 
its  malignity  when  it  comes  to  a  man,  not  as 
an  isolated  experience  in  a  multiform  career, 
but  as  a  blow  aimed  at  a  cherished  principle 
of  life  and  a  uniform  course  of  action.  It  is 
an  immense  strength  for  a  man  to  be  able  to 
say  to  the  enticer,  ‘I  never  have  yielded  to 
that  kind  of  temptation  yet,  and  I  am  not 
going  to  begin  now.’  It  is  an  immense  sup¬ 
port  to  a  life  of  integrity,  to  be  able  to  meet 
the  specious  appeal  to  a  supposed  profit  in 
dishonesty  by  an  honest  repudiation  which 
can  say,  ‘  I  have  never  done  a  dishonest  action 
yet,  nor  told  a  lie,  and  it  would  be  contrary  to 
all  my  principles  to  do  so.’  How  is  a  good 
habit  formed,  but  by  a  constant  appeal  to  a 
uniform  tradition,  working  in  one  direction, 
which  does  not  depend  on  whim  or  caprice, 
but  on  a  definite  course  deliberately  chosen 
and  consistently  maintained,  until  it  becomes 
a  second  nature?  There  is  a  strength  in 
tradition,  which  the  powers  of  evil  know, 
even  if  we  do  not,  as  they  thrust  in  face  of 
what  the  man  may  become,  the  numbing 
influence  of  what  he  has  been,  and  what  he  is. 


160 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


It  is  folly  to  ignore  so  potent  an  influence  in 
making  or  marring  our  life.  One  of  our 
greatest  national  treasures  is  the  glorious 
tradition  which  is  the  heritage  of  our  race, 
and  therefore  once  more,  as  the  depositary  of 
that  tradition,  and  as  the  upholder  of  its 
integrity,  we  say  of  him  whose  Coronation 
we  acclaim  to-day,  “  God  save  the  King.” 


III. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  human  nature 
being  what  it  is,  and  our  English  nation  being 
what  it  is,  there  has  gathered  round  the 
sentiment  of  our  loyalty  a  depth  of  personal 
feeling  for  the  individual  sovereign.  Not 
officially  only,  but  personally,  out  of  respect 
and  affection  for  the  reigning  monarch ;  where 
that  has  not  been  made  impossible,  we  have 
loved  to  say,  “  God  save  the  King.” 

We,  none  of  us,  are  likely  to  forget  the 
great  personal  devotion  which  all  classes  of 
Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  displayed 
towards  our  late  Queen.  Her  throne,  if  any, 
was  reared  up  in  the  hearts  of  her  people. 
We  have  read  of  also,  and  can  appreciate,  the 
extraordinary  devotion  which  burned  in  the 
hearts  of  many  at  all  events  of  his  subjects, 
towards  the  ill-fated  Charles  I.  English 


THE  KING 


161 


people  have  been  proud  of  such  a  Queen  as 
Elizabeth,  or  have  admired  the  prowess  of 
a  Richard  I.,  or  even  the  undaunted  determi¬ 
nation  of  a  William  the  Conqueror ;  and 
certainly  that  heart  would  be  cold  indeed 
which  refused  to  go  out  in  personal  affection 
to  the  touching  appeal  which  the  King  has 
made  to  the  sympathies  of  his  people  in  the 
letter  which  he  has  addressed  to  them  on 
his  recovery  from  a  dangerous  sickness  so 
courageously  borne.  Nor  is  this  a  merely 
sentimental  affection.  We  know  how 
earnestly  our  King  has  always  laboured  for, 
as  he  has  always  deeply  sympathised  with, 
the  cause  of  the  sick  and  afflicted  in  our 
hospitals.  It  is  a  sad  and  humiliating  page  of 
our  history  which  Sir  Walter  Besant,  in  his 
preface  to  “  Suffering  London,”  has  put  before 
us  in  all  its  naked  significance,  which  treats 
of  the  suppression  of  our  hospitals  in  this  city 
of  ours,  where  old  institutions  of  mercy  and 
love  were  ruthlessly  pillaged  and  their 
revenues  dispersed,  in  one  of  the  most  dis¬ 
graceful  epochs  of  our  history,  and  private 
greed  left  London  bereft  of  any  sort  of 
institution  for  the  relief  of  our  suffering  poor. 
We  shall  not  soon  forget  the  efforts  which 
our  present  Sovereign  has  made  in  restoring 
and  re-endowing  our  present  hospitals,  and  in 
bringing  to  bear  the  personal  influence  of  his 

12 


162 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


great  name  on  their  permanent  improvement. 
It  is  not  a  little  significant  that  his  people,  in 
seeking  a  present  for  his  Coronation  most 
near  to  his  heart,  should  have  agreed  that 
this  present  should  take  the  form  of  a  gift  of 
money  to  the  London  Hospitals.  Here  is  a 
trait  in  our  Sovereign’s  character  which,  with 
many  others,  will  add  a  personal  strain  to 
the  acclamation  with  which  we  hail  him  as 
Sovereign.  But  we  feel  now,  even  more,  that 
he  has  risen  from  his  sick-bed  bound  to  us  by 
closer  ties  of  sympathy,  and  with  even  greater 
claims  to  our  tenderness  and  personal  affection. 
As  Christians,  we  have  been  taught  to  believe 
that  suffering  is  a  special  badge  of  favour 
from  God,  bestowed  on  those  whom  the  King 
delights  to  honour.  And  we  welcome  him 
now  in  the  dignity  of  suffering,  and  in  the 
appeal  of  his  late  weakness,  as  one  who,  from 
personal  experience,  can  sympathise,  even 
more  than  he  did  before,  with  that  great 
majority  of  his  subjects  who  are  called  upon 
to  suffer;  and  while  he  asks  us  to  work 
together  with  God  in  doing  all  that  we  can  to 
alleviate  pain  and  combat  sickness  in  spread¬ 
ing  the  advantages  of  the  scientific  treatment 
of  disease,  he  also  appeals  to  us  by  that  which 
has  become  one  of  the  traditions  of  his  royal 
race,  which  came  to  us  as  a  message  from  the 
bed  of  death  of  a  brave  Emperor,  whom  God 


THE  KING 


163 


had  called  upon  to  endure  one  of  the  severest 
forms  of  bodily  disease,  “  Learn  to  suffer 
without  complaint.” 

My  brethren,  in  crowning  our  King,  we 
crown  the  majesty  of  law,  we  crown  the 
greatness  of  our  tradition,  and  the  glory  of 
our  race,  but  we  also  crown  one  who  has 
mounted  the  steps  of  his  throne,  straight 
from  the  shaping  tenderness  of  the  loving 
hand  of  God. 

And,  therefore,  with  all  our  hearts  we  say  : 
“  God  save  the  King.” 


VIII 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


VIII 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 
Preached  in  S.  Paul’s  in  Advent,  1901. 


“  Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates,  and  be  ye  lift  up,  ye 
everlasting  doors:  and  the  King  of  Glory  shall  come  in.” — 
Psa.  xxiv.  9. 

It  has  been  said  that  in  our  modern  world 
God  is  very  seldom  spoken  of  as  beautiful. 
The  old  Jews,  whose  religion  so  many  now 
affect  to  despise,  reposed  on  the  beauty,  the 
majesty,  the  glory  of  God.  We  are  afraid  of 
God,  we  hope  to  get  certain  advantages  from 
Him.  We  talk  sometimes  of  His  love  and  of 
His  providence.  But  our  hearts  seldom  follow 
our  lips  when  we  sing,  “  Thou  art  the  King  of 
Glory,  O  Christ.”  “Thou  art  the  everlasting 
Son  of  the  Father.”  “We  worship  Thee,  we 
glorify  Thee,  we  give  thanks  to  Thee  for  Thy 
great  glory.”  Think,  dear  brethren,  can  you 


168 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


enter  into  the  magnificence  of  that  great  hymn 
which  we  are  singing  through  Advent,  “  0  all 
ye  works  of  the  Lord,  bless  ye  the  Lord, 
praise  Him  and  magnify  Him  for  ever  ”  ? 
Listen  how  choir  joins  itself  to  choir — the 
heaven  with  its  thousand  songs,  earth  with  its 
melodies,  the  roar  of  the  thunder,  the  murmur 
of  the  wind,  the  rustle  of  the  grass,  the  clear 
piping  of  the  birds,  the  lowing  of  the  cattle, 
the  song  of  the  redeemed,  the  shout  of  the 
warrior,  things  animate  and  inanimate,  all  men 
and  all  things  turned  towards  the  Lord,  to 
praise  Him  for  what  He  is,  to  adore  Him 
because  he  is  glorious,  to  magnify  him  because 
He  is  King  above  all.  The  King  of  Glory 
passes  on  His  way,  and  the  flowers  spring  up 
beneath  His  feet,  and  the  creature  lifts  its 
drooping  head,  and  man  forgets  his  aches  and 
pains  as  he  swings  his  crippled  limbs  into  the 
path  of  progress,  he  forgets  to  fear,  he  even 
forgets  to  beg.  God  is  terrible,  God  is  good, 
but  God  is  glorious.  “  0  come,  let  us  praise 
Him  and  magnify  Him  for  ever.” 

“  But  what  do  you  mean  ?  ”  says  the  practical 
man ;  “  put  your  poetry  into  prose,  and  tell  me 
what  precise  utility  there  is  in  praise.  I  am  a 
plain  business  man.  I  cannot  stop  my  work  to 
sing.  I  have  a  hard  battle  to  fight  within  and 
without.  Let  me  look  to  duty,  and  let  others 
talk  of  glory.  I  have  a  soul  to  be  saved,  and 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


169 


no  breath  to  waste  on  rhapsodies.”  And  yet 
from  end  to  end  the  Bible  meets  him  with 
glory  and  praise  and  honour;  the  Church 
takes  up  a  large  portion  of  his  Sunday 
devotions  with  praise.  The  glory  of  the  Lord 
streams  out,  as  of  old,  and  floods  the  sanctuary. 
Has  our  practical  friend  got  hold  of  a  right 
antithesis?  Is  the  useful  one  thing  and  the 
beautiful  another  ?  Has  beauty  no  use  ?  Is 
praise  the  occupation  of  the  idle?  And  is 
glory  a  revelation  for  the  unemployed  ? 

“The  King  of  Glory.”  It  is  a  title  given  to 
our  Blessed  Lord,  the  incarnate  King,  which 
we  can  feel  rather  than  describe  ;  but  we  re¬ 
cognise  that  it  is  too  prominently  and  too 
frequently  put  before  us  that  we  should  neglect 
it  or  refuse  to  try  to  understand  it.  What  is 
glory?  And  what  advance  have  we  in  the 
term  on  simple  beauty?  Is  it  a  radiance 
which  plays  about  beauty  as  joy  is  a  radiance 
which  plays  about  happiness  ?  Is  it  an  expres¬ 
sion  of  inner  life  and  force  which  streams  out 
and  floods  the  outward  form?  The  flowers 
are  glorious  in  their  living  beauty,  the  sun  is 
glorious  in  its  fount  of  ever-kindling  light, 
art  is  glorious  if  it  reflects  inward  beauty  of 
thought  and  design.  Aaron’s  garments  were 
meant  to  be  for  glory  and  for  beauty.  Heroic 
actions  are  glorious  when  they  shed  forth  a 
lustre  of  greatness,  or  are  lit  up  with  the  re- 


170 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


fleeted  praise  of  right-thinking  men  ;  and  God 
is  glorious  because  He  is  the  Fountain  of  un¬ 
created  light,  because  in  all  His  works  and 
words  and  dealings  with  the  children  of  men 
there  shines  forth  the  expression  of  His  good¬ 
ness  and  beauty.  And  God  is  also  glorious 
because  we  pour  out  upon  Him  all  the  wealth 
of  our  homage  and  praise.  All  that  is  great 
and  noble  and  beautiful  reflects  the  power  of 
Almighty  God.  So  that  we  say,  “  O  God,  how 
wonderful  art  Thou  in  Thy  works  ”  ;  “  O  Lord, 
how  glorious  are  Thy  works ;  Thy  thoughts 
are  very  deep.”  Look  at  the  grass  beneath 
our  feet,  the  worm  which  crawls  on  the  ground, 
the  flowers,  the  sky,  man  in  his  wonderful 
mechanism  of  life,  wherever  God  has  put  His 
hand  there  is  glory ;  and  we  shall  find  that 
glory  and  beauty  are  not  the  useless  things 
which  our  practical  friend  took  them  to  be.  “  To 
this  constitution  of  things  outward,”  it  has  been 
said,  “the  constitution  and  mind  of  man, 
deranged  although  they  be,  still  answer  from 
within.  Down  to  the  humblest  condition  of  life, 
down  to  the  lowest  and  most  backward  grade 
of  civilisation,  the  nature  of  man  craves,  and 
seems  as  it  were  to  cry  aloud,  for  some  thing, 
some  sign  or  token  at  the  least  of  what  is 
beautiful,  in  some  of  the  many  spheres  of 
mind  or  sense.  This  is  it  that  makes  the 
Spitalfields  weaver,  amidst  the  mirky  streets 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


171 


of  London,  train  canaries  and  bullfinches  to 
sing  to  him  at  his  work,  that  fills  with  flower¬ 
pots  the  windows  of  the  poor,  that  leads  the 
peasant  of  Pembrokeshire  to  paint  the  outside 
of  his  cottage  in  the  gayest  colours,  that 
prompts  in  the  humblest  classes  of  women  a 
desire  for  some  little  personal  ornament.”  It 
is  the  work  of  sin  to  eradicate  the  love  for 
beauty.  The  devil  knows  the  power  which 
lingers  round  the  traces  of  the  footsteps  of  the 
King  of  Glory,  and  he  blots  them  out  with 
ugliness,  and  smears  them  with  foulness, 
that  we  may  forget  Him  whose  name  is  the 
King  of  Glory. 

But  that  we  may  bring  these  thoughts  closer 
home  to  our  practical  life,  let  us  rather  look  at 
the  truth  which  underlies  the  words  of  the  old 
Scotch  Catechism,  “  What  is  the  chief  end  of 
man  ?  Man’s  chief  end  is  to  glorify  God,  and 
to  enjoy  Him  for  ever.”  “  The  King  of  Glory  ” 
appeals  to  His  creatures  for  more  glory.  The 
lower  creation  reflects  God  unconsciously  and 
sheds  forth  His  glory.  Man,  made  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God,  dowered  with 
free-will  and  the  power  to  choose,  is  called 
upon  to  do  this  consciously,  as  a  sign  that 
he  is  taking  his  place  at  the  head  of  creation, 
and  that  he  is  working  together  with  God  in 
all  the  fulness  of  his  powers,  in  all  the  capa¬ 
cities  of  his  being. 


172  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


I. 

And,  first  of  all,  the  King  of  Glory  asks  for 
the  glory  of  our  worship.  It  is  not  an  easy 
matter  to  bring  men  to  realise  that  this  is 
due  to  God  from  them.  Men  will  come  some¬ 
times  to  pray,  they  will  come  sometimes  to  be 
taught ;  but  how  few  will  come  purely  and 
simply  to  worship  ?  They  will  come  to 
church,  that  is,  to  get,  but  they  will  not  come 
to  give.  But  there  is  a  mystery  in  beauty,  in 
itself ;  in  flowers  which  no  human  eye  sees,  no 
insect  touches,  in  the  buried  magnificence  only 
to  be  extricated  by  the  microscope,  hidden  for 
ages  from  all  human  eye,  and  now  only  known 
to  a  few.  So,  when  the  cry  of  the  world 
mounts  up  to  God,  when  the  needs  of  the  poor, 
the  woes  of  the  suffering,  the  wail  of  the 
oppressed,  the  misery  of  the  sinner,  are  all 
powerfully  pleading  their  prayers  for  aid, 
when  the  ante-room  of  the  throne  of  God  is 
crowded  with  suffering  humanity  and  all 
the  needs  of  a  pain-stricken  world ;  if  we 
are  tempted  to  ask,  ‘  Why  still  these  groans 
with  alleluias,  or  stifle  these  pleadings  with 
praise ;  why  think  now  of  the  King  of  Glory 
when  our  whole  heart  goes  out  to  the  Lord 
of  tender  compassion  ?  ’  God  would  still  seem 
to  say,  ‘  Give  Me  your  worship,’  for  worship 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


173 


surely  is  the  highest  form  of  assent  to  His 
sovereign  will ;  the  worship  of  man,  in  its 
measure,  is  what  the  ceaseless  hum  of  creation 
fulfilling  its  allotted  task  is  in  the  great 
Benedicite  of  the  world’s  praise  ;  “  Amen,  so  be 
it,”  “  Alleluia,”  we  rejoice  when  we  do  it, 
and  praise  the  name  of  God  because  it  is  so 
comfortable.  And  even  more  than  this,  we 
offer  glory  to  the  King  of  Glory.  He  who 
has  given  us  the  mouth  to  praise  Him  is 
entitled  to  a  share  of  its  praises ;  He  who  has 
given  us  the  power  to  execute  works  of  beauty 
is  entitled  to  a  share  of  our  efforts.  We  some¬ 
times  hear  a  great  deal  said  against  anything 
like  forms  and  ceremonies  in  the  worship  of 
Almighty  God.  Certainly  a  religion  which 
consists  merely  of  forms  and  ceremonies 
offered  in  a  mechanical  way  by  a  living 
machine  is  comparable  only  to  the  Buddhist  s 
prayer-wheel,  or  any  other  form  of  unintelli¬ 
gent  worship.  But  when  we  consider  what 
God  is,  when  we  think  of  the  King  of  Glory  in 
all  His  beauty,  when  we  think  of  the  wise  men 
in  the  Gospel  tracking  the  desert  simply  to  fall 
down  and  worship  the  new-born  King,  while 
they  open  their  treasures  and  present  unto 
Him  gifts,  gold,  and  frankincense,  and  myrrh, 
we  feel  there  is  a  place  for  worship  which  is 
not  prayer,  and  for  praise  which  is  not  sup¬ 
plication,  for  beauty  offered  to  the  God  of 


174  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 

beauty  by  those  who  give  Him  of  their  best. 
And  here,  perhaps,  we  may  pause  to  correct 
a  common  mistake,  and  mitigate  a  frequent 
disappointment.  It  used  to  be  thought  in 
some  quarters— it  is  thought  so  still— that 
beautiful  accessories  in  worship  add  something 
to  the  greater  easiness  of  approach  to  Almighty 
God,  that  he  who  finds  it  difficult  to  approach 
God  in  simple  prose  may  be  helped  to 
approach  Him  by  music  ;  he  who  fails  to  reach 
Him  with  the  understanding  may  find  it  easier 
to  approach  by  the  help  of  the  senses  and  the 
things  which  strike  the  eye  and  ear.  To  a 
certain  extent  it  may  be  so,  but  the  fuller  the 
worship  which  we  offer  to  God,  the  more 
difficult  in  reality  it  becomes  to  approach  Him 
worthily ;  for  forms  and  ceremonies  and  ritual 
are  the  opening  of  another  treasure  which 
demands  its  own  carefulness  and  its  own 
preparation.  And  he  who  trusts  to  be  elevated 
in  spite  of  himself  by  the  accessories  of  worship 
finds  himself  instead  struggling  with  his  own 
weakness,  and  left  cold  and  unenlightened  in 
the  barrenness  of  a  devotion  into  which  the 
heart  has  never  entered.  Ah!  dear  friends, 
we  are  unlike  the  King  of  Glory  in  this ;  our 
glory  adds  nothing  or  little  to  the  radiancy  of 
His  majesty,  for  whereas  if  we  search  into  the 
things  of  God  we  find  more  and  more  hidden 
beauties,  if  we  search  heneath  our  worship  we 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


175 


find  so  much  that  is  unworthy ;  the  worship 
of  the  life  to  which  the  conduct  gives  the  lie, 
bright  and  glorious  words  where  the  heart  is 
cold  and  irresponsive  ;  things  which  pretend 
to  be  beautiful,  but  which  are  disfigured  by 
sin.  How  little  glory  there  is  in  our  worship, 
how  little  of  the  inner  radiancy  penetrating 
through  to  the  expression,  how  little  of  the 
glory  and  the  beauty  which  belong  to  the 
homage  of  free  men,  who  give  willingly  of 
their  best  to  God,  Who  giveth  all.  No  wonder 
that  the  idea  of  worship  has  so  largely  died  out 
amongst  us,  where  formalism  is  so  easy  and 
true  homage  so  difficult ;  but  we  must  never 
rest  until  we  have  risen  above  the  conception 
of  many  people  saying  their  prayers  in  public, 
to  the  grand  conception  of  one  united  con¬ 
gregation  joining  in  the  glorious  worship  of 
the  glorious  King. 


II. 

But  not  only  in  our  worship,  but  in  our 
work,  must  we  offer  glory  to  the  King  of 
Glory.  Remember,  the  world  expects  from  us 
decency,  but  God  expects  glory.  God  looks 
not  at  our  work  only,  but  at  the  way  in  which 
we  do  our  work.  Look  at  the  mountain 
valley  invaded  by  some  modern  industry  ;  the 


176 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


trees  which  clothe  the  mountain  side  are  cut 
away,  the  sky  is  blackened,  the  river  is 
poisoned,  the  fish  die,  the  grass  withers — 
what  does  it  matter?  Man  turns  out  his 
machines  by  the  dozen  day  by  day,  his  coffers 
are  filled,  his  trade  increases.  Is  not  this  a 
the  way  in  which  we  too  often  push 
our  individual  work  in  disregard  of  the  glory 
of  God  ?  Sad  it  is  to  say  so,  sad  that  it  should 
be  so,  but  it  is  true  that  free  man  is  too  often 
the  one  blot  in  the  beauty  of  creation,  the  one 
discord  in  the  harmony  of  the  world’s  hymn 
of  praise.  What  an  ugly  thing,  for  instance, 
is  selfishness.  Here  is  a  man  pushing  his  way, 
regardless  of  all  the  little  amenities  that 
make  life  happy  and  beautiful.  He  goes  to 
his  business  in  the  City ;  as  long  as  he  is 
comfortable,  and  they  are  punctual  in  their 
duties,  it  does  not  matter  to  him  whether  the 
clerks  are  prosperous  or  in  sore  distress.  He 
has  no  little  word  of  condolence  for  their 
sorrows,  no  word  of  sympathy  for  their  joys. 
He  has  pushed  his  way  down  to  the  office,  he 
will  push  his  way  through  the  business  of  the 
day.  One  word  of  caution  might  have  saved 
a  falling  career  ;  it  is  not  given.  One  word  of 
kindliness  might  have  eased  a  troubled  heart ; 
it  is  withheld.  In  his  paper-basket  lie  the 
appeals  for  help  ;  they  are  many  and  trouble¬ 
some.  What  do  the  factory-girls  want  with 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY  177 

holidays  ? — London  is  the  best  place  for  them. 
What  do  boys  want  with  sea-side  camps  ? — it 
will  soon  be  impossible  to  get  any  boys  for  the 
office.  What  need  is  there  for  penitentiary 
work? — things  always  have  been  so,  and 
always  will  be  so ;  he  is  not  going  to  waste 
his  money.  He  does  not  approve  of  Missions ; 
he  thinks  the  East-end  Fund  has  too  much 
money.  Or,  perhaps,  he  can  take  a  virtuous 
line  for  once,  and  say  he  conscientiously  dis¬ 
approves  of  it.  To  withhold  a  subscription 
is  not  always  popular,  to  refuse  to  subscribe 
on  principle  may  add  to  his  dignity.  His 
basket  gets  piled  higher  and  higher,  many  of 
his  letters  follow  in  the  same  direction.  It  is 
quite  safe  to  say  he  has  many  claims,  it  would 
not  be  quite  so  safe  to  say  how  many  of  those 
claims  are  satisfied.  The  world  touches  him 
at  countless  points.  The  atmosphere,  clouded 
with  business,  is  relieved  by  no  gleam  of 
benevolence.  The  stream  of  evil,  as  it  flows 
by  him,  is  unflooded  with  any  purifying- 
influence.  Selfishness  has  scorched  and  dried 
up  all  within  its  reach,  and  he  goes  home  to 
his  house  still  wrapped  in  self,  no  smile  to 
make  home  bright,  no  welcome  for  children, 
no  sympathy  for  the  daily  burden  of  those 
who  labour  to  keep  home  happy.  His  balance 
at  the  bank  rises,  and  heaven  is  black,  and 
earth  is  scorched,  and  the  tenderer  virtues 

13 


178 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


wither  and  die.  Depend  upon  it,  dear 
brethren,  it  is  an  offence  against  the  God  of 
Glory  to  forget  all  the  amenities  and  bright¬ 
nesses  of  life.  If  Dante  put  the  melancholy 
in  hell,  we  must  feel,  at  least,  that  those  who 
destroy  joy  and  tenderness  with  the  gloom  of 
their  selfishness  are  no  fit  attendants  in  the 
train  of  the  King  of  Glory,  whose  work  is 
beautiful,  and  whose  footsteps  are  glorious. 
Selfishness,  of  course,  has  darker  patches  of 
evil  than  this,  which  it  leaves  upon  the  world. 
The  King  of  Glory  goes  upon  His  way, 
surrounded  with  those  who  excel  in  strength, 
who  have  conquered,  with  those  whom  His 
bounty  has  helped,  His  mercy  has  spared,  His 
grace  has  elevated.  There  is  a  career  of 
selfishness  which  is  marked  by  degradation, 
and  littered  with  ruin,  and  branded  with 
death;  the  selfishness  which  thrives  on  the 
degradation  of  another’s  sin.  It  is  a  sad  and 
awful  sight  to  see  great  patches  of  God’s 
machinery  thrown  out  of  gear,  work  crippled, 
and  lives  ruined  by  the  selfishness  of  sinners. 
Ah  !  my  brethren,  if  there  be  any  here,  this 
Advent,  who  is  trading  on  another’s  sinfulness, 
who,  reckless  of  souls  for  whom  Christ  died, 
seeks  to  draw  after  him  companions  of  his 
guilt,  to  ease  the  darkness  of  his  sin-swept 
soul,  to  cheer  with  company  the  intolerable 
burden  of  his  guilt — if  there  be  any  who 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


179 


thinks  to  gratify  his  own  selfishness  at  the 
price  of  another’s  soul — let  him  pause  and 
think  that  in  addition  to  the  awful  penalties 
which  attach  to  his  action,  he  must  also 
reckon  on  this — that  he  is  offending  against 
beauty,  against  the  glory  of  this  world  of 
God’s  creating,  which  His  own  hands  have 
made  to  reflect  His  majesty  and  do  honour  to 
His  truth.  Those  black  scars  of  sin  which 
disfigure  the  world,  those  miserable  wastes  of 
creation  which  show  what  man  has  made  of 
man,  are  the  scandal  and  the  shame  of  our 
boasted  enlightenment,  and  progress  is  no 
progress  which  leaves  untouched  this  deadly 
selfishness,  and  which  turns  instruction  itself 
into  a  deadlier  implement  for  robbing  a  man 
of  his  very  soul,  if  it  can  do  anything  to  add 
to  the  ghastly  pile  of  a  corrupt  selfishness. 

Surely,  dear  brethren,  when  there  are  so 
many  spasmodic  and  ill-advised  efforts  being 
made  to  add  to  the  beauty  of  the  world,  in 
our  public  monuments,  in  house  decoration,  in 
street  architecture  ;  when  there  is  a  craze  for 
the  aesthetic  and  the  beautiful,  when  men 
think  that  a  veil  of  poetry  is  a  sufficient  cloak 
for  nastiness,  or  the  sacred  name  of  art  a  con¬ 
donation  for  offences  against  moral  purity,  it 
is  somewhat  ironical  that  there  should  be  so 
little  care  for  the  beautiful  in  language,  in 
expression,  in  subjects  which  are  brought 


180 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


before  the  public  eye.  It  would  be  a  startling 
revelation,  I  should  expect,  to  many  of  us,  if, 
after  all  these  years  of  instruction,  we  could 
see  the  use  that  is  made  by  many  of  our 
children  of  the  great  acquirements  of  reading 
and  writing.  It  would  be  a  startling  revela¬ 
tion  if  we  knew  the  habitual  topics  of  conver¬ 
sation  with  large  portions,  not  the  lowest,  of 
the  population,  and  the  sort  of  language 
habitually  used.  No  one  can  walk  many 
yards  in  one  of  our  public  streets,  or  even  in 
a  country  village,  without  hearing  words 
apparently  only  chosen  because  they  are  vile 
and  ugly,  which  mean  nothing  except  that 
they  sound  foul,  which  are  a  sort  of  devilish 
converse  to  the  flowers  and  beauty  in  which 
God  covers  His  work,  so  much  foulness 
thrown  off  by  the  mouth  which  speaks  out  of 
the  abundance  of  the  evil  heart.  I  ventured 
to  speak  plainly  from  this  place  in  the 
summer  about  the  scandal  of  vile  pictures 
exhibited  to  children  in  public  places  in 
return  for  their  poor  pence.  They  are,  I  am 
told,  even  worse  than  I  supposed  them  to  be ; 
and  the  only  defence  of  those  which  are  not 
absolutely  vile  amounts  to  this,  that  they  are 
only  morally  ugly.  There  are  publications 
being  sold  openly  to-day,  and  in  respectable 
places,  which  are  an  outrage  on  elementary 
decency.  Are  we  treating  God  fairly,  I  ask, 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


181 


dear  brethren,  in  thus  allowing  or  con¬ 
tributing  to  this  overflowing  of  ungodliness  ? 
Remember  that  with  all  this  there  is  the 
craving  for  unhealthy  sensation,  the  appa¬ 
rently  psychological  attraction  in  listening  to 
the  discussion  of  interesting  problems,  as  they 
are  called,  which  lie  well  over  the  borderland 
of  moral  health.  Remember,  also,  there  is  a 
constant  danger  of  clipping  the  current  coin 
of  language  until  its  beauty  and  value  perish ; 
there  is  a  danger  in  discarding  all  efforts 
after  style  as  unreal  and  unmeaning.  It  is  a 
common  complaint  that  few  real  letters  are 
written  to-day  worthy  of  the  name.  There  is 
a  constant  danger  of  casting  away  refine¬ 
ments  of  manner  and  courtesy  in  behaviour 
and  the  niceties  of  propriety,  all  which  mean 
so  much,  as  a  ritual  of  beauty  which  God  has 
put  round  society,  as  a  safeguard  against  the 
approach  of  grave  evils  which  are  always 
near,  and  always  ready  to  burst  in  and  over¬ 
whelm  public  manners  and  public  morals.  In 
a  world  where  we  worship  the  King  of  Glory 
we  can  afford  to  despise  no  single  shred  of 
beauty  where  we  find  it ;  we  owe  it  to  God, 
and  we  need  it  for  ourselves.  For  God  draws 
us  by  beauty  to  His  own  loveliness,  and  lures 
us  from  the  foulness  of  sin  to  the  majesty  of 
His  own  great  glory. 


182  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


III. 

For  not  only  in  the  outward  setting  of  our 
life,  but  much  more  in  our  inward  character, 
we  must  ever  seek  to  be  followers  of  the  King 
of  Glory.  When  S.  John  in  his  vision  of  the 
blessed  in  heaven  is  asked  by  one  of  the 
elders,  “  What  are  these  which  are  arrayed  in 
white  robes  and  whence  came  they  ?  ”  he  says, 
as  hardly  able  to  answer  the  question  or  to 
unravel  the  mystery  of  this  dazzling  throng, 
“  Sir,  thou  knowest.”1  “  It  is  rather  for  you  to 
tell  me  than  for  me  to  tell  you  the  secret  of  a 
glory  so  strange  and  unapproachable.”  So  we 
feel  that  in  human  nature  there  is  a  wealth  of 
possibility,  a  depth  of  glory,  with  which  it  is 
able  to  answer  to  God’s  creative  love  and  add 
a  fresh  lustre  to  the  glory  of  the  King.  What 
a  wonderful  thing  it  is  to  live,  to  enjoy  a 
human  life  at  all !  As  the  soul  newly  created 
wings  its  way  from  God  to  take  up  its  human 
habitation  in  the  body  prepared  for  it,  what  a 
wonderful  life  opens  out !  There  it  stands 
between  two  worlds !  With  the  body  it 
touches  all  this  world  in  which  we  live : 
through  the  senses  are  brought  in  beauties  of 
sound,  of  sight,  of  touch,  of  taste  and  smell, 
through  the  mind  it  links  itself  on  with  the 
past,  and  to  the  future  ;  it  can  read  the  record 

1  Rev.  vii.  18. 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


183 


of  history,  it  can  think,  and  people  the  future 
with  images,  it  can  fancy,  it  can  love,  it  can 
fear,  it  can  hope  and  believe.  Through  the 
spirit  it  can  reach  right  up  into  heaven,  all 
God’s  grace  passes  into  it  from  above,  and  the 
will  sits  within  to  reign,  to  judge,  and  to 
execute.  We  know  what  a  fearful  thing  is  a 
man  or  a  woman  who  has  gone  wrong  in 
cruelty,  in  lust,  in  pride,  or  in  avarice ;  there 
is  no  animal  like  it  in  the  possible  depths  of 
depravity ;  but,  also,  thank  God,  what  a 
wonderful  and  glorious  thing  is  a  man  who 
goes  right,  in  whom  all  things  work  together 
for  good.  Here,  again,  there  is  nothing  in 
creation  like  it.  "We  have  been  allowed  to 
see  from  time  to  time  the  possibilities  of 
beauty  in  a  saintly  character,  where  have 
been  exhibited  those  moral  beauties  which 
the  King  of  Glory  has  made  possible  to 
human  nature.  Here  surely  is  a  call  to  us  to 
rise  to  the  very  height  of  our  character.  We 
too  often  are  like  men  who  live  on  lands 
which  they  do  not  know  how  to  cultivate, 
who  are  surrounded  with  treasures  which 
they  do  not  know  how  to  unearth,  or  who  are 
as  those  who  sit  in  front  of  some  grand 
instrument  of  music  which  they  do  not  know 
how  to  play.  As  the  creations  of  God  in 
nature  we  owe  to  Him  the  beauty  of  our  lives. 
But  He  has  added  to  the  natural  gifts  which 


184 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


He  has  bestowed  upon  us  the  further 
treasures  of  His  grace.  If  there  were  some 
spiritual  microscope,  as  it  were,  by  which  we 
could  examine  our  lives,  we  should  see  the 
wonderful  place  which  grace  occupies  in  them. 
We  should  see  how  religion  raises  men  from 
earth  to  heaven,  how  it  liberates  some  of  that 
glory  which  ought  to  play  around  the  children 
of  light.  We  may  instruct  and  educate, 
cultivate  and  develop  human  nature  as  much 
as  we  please ;  without  religion  it  will  remain 
robbed  of  its  central  light,  its  inner  beauty. 
It  will  fail  in  that  glory  which  it  was  meant 
to  give  back  from  glory  to  glory,  as  it  reflects 
the  image  of  God. 

And  even  more  than  this.  God  has  His 
own  special  glory  of  character  for  the  in¬ 
dividual  life,  to  be  struck  out  by  discipline 
and  the  blows  of  chastisement.  “  These  are 
they  who  came  out  of  great  tribulation”  is 
still  the  history  of  those  glories  of  character 
which  we  see  developed  around  us.  Here  God 
is  imparting  the  virtue  of  detachment  by  the 
gentle  severance  of  ties  which  bind  us  down 
to  earth.  Here  the  light  of  the  eyes  and  the 
joy  of  life  is  being  taken  away,  lest  human 
affection  should  obscure  the  perfect  love  of 
God.  Here  the  lamb  of  the  flock  is  being 
taken  on  before,  that  the  mother  may  follow 
more  easily  the  road  which  brings  to  heaven. 


THE  GOD  OF  GLORY 


185 


Discipline  of  character,  the  thorn  in  the  flesh, 
which  seems  to  be  only  the  minister  of  Satan 
sent  to  buffet,  is  bringing  out  beneath  the 
blow  the  radiance  of  character  which  reflects 
Christ. 

Surely  a  ray  from  the  King  of  Glory  will  be 
found  to  lighten  up  all  our  troubles,  and 
make  glad  the  dark  places  of  the  earth.  Just 
as  on  a  stormy  day  a  shaft  of  light  will  drop 
down  from  the  troubled  sky,  and  the  earth 
smiles  through  her  tears  of  rain,  and  the 
dripping  rocks  are  spangled  with  glittering- 
gleams,  and  the  valleys  laugh  with  joy,  and 
all  creation  gladdens  beneath  its  touch,  so 
the  glory  of  God  lights  up  with  its  healing 
beams  the  dark  places  of  the  world,  where 
trouble  and  sorrow  lie  heaviest,  and  the 
problem  of  poverty  and  the  squalor  and  sins 
of  our  large  towns  lie  with  their  oppressing 
weight  on  the  conscience  and  energies  of  the 
Church ;  then  out  of  the  gloom,  almost  the 
product  of  it,  start  forth  the  magnificent 
examples  of  men  and  women,  the  brothers 
and  sisters  of  compassion,  who,  like  their 
Master  before  them,  go  about  doing  good.  It 
is  part  of  the  glory  of  Christianity  which  falls 
with  its  enlightening  beam  on  the  sorrows  of 
the  world.  So,  where  sin  has  left  its  trail  of 
sadness,  and  the  heart  lies  bleeding  and 
desolate  beneath  the  burden  of  its  guilt,  once 


186 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


more  there  falls  a  ray  of  glory  from  the 
glorious  King,  and  penitence  lights  up  with 
its  own  bright  beauty  the  dark  places  of  the 
soul  where  innocence  has  been  beaten  down 
by  the  storm.  More  than  all,  the  King  of  Glory 
knows  how  to  shed  abroad,  in  the  hearts  that 
respond  to  Him,  that  effulgence  of  Christian 
power  and  the  beauty  of  the  higher  life  which 
He  came  to  bring.  Love,  joy,  peace,  long- 
suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meek¬ 
ness,  temperance,  send  flashing  back  to  heaven 
the  glory  which  streams  upon  them  from  the 
King  of  perfect  beauty.  It  may  seem  strange, 
almost  ironical,  amidst  the  sin  and  squalor 
and  gloom  of  the  world,  to  talk  of  glory  and 
beauty.  But  a  moral  depression  is  the  first 
step  to  a  moral  fall ;  a  hopeless  estimate  of 
human  wickedness  will  check  our  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  reformation  of  its  many  evils  ; 
a  firm  belief  in  our  own  moral  impotence  for 
good  is  a  sure  way  to  lose  all  aspirations  for 
better  things.  God  draws  us  upwards  and 
onwards  by  beauty ;  He  shows  us  the  true 
nobility  of  the  higher  life,  the  true  dignity  of 
work,  and  the  glory  of  worship.  And  beauty, 
wheresoever  we  see  it,  comes  to  us  as  a  direct 
message  from  God,  saying,  “Lift  up  your 
hearts.”  And  we  answer  out  of  the  gloom, 
yet  out  of  the  glory  which  still  plays  around 
the  children  of  God — 

“We  lift  them  up  unto  the  Lord.” 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


IX 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 
Preached  in  S.  Paul’s  in  Advent,  1901. 

“  The  Lord  of  Hosts  is  with  us  ;  the  God  of  Jacob  is  our 
refuge.” — Psa.  xlvi.  7. 

Here  is  the  title  of  Almighty  God  on  which 
the  Psalmist  seems  to  fall  back  with  a  sense 
of  relief,  as  one  stricken  and  wounded  might 
fall  back  into  the  arms  of  a  strong  deliverer. 
It  is  a  sense  of  that  repose  on  strength  which 
underlies  the  great  title  “  Comforter.”  It  is 
the  confident  cry  of  the  Creed,  “  I  believe 
in  God  the  Father  Almighty.”  “Strong  Son 
of  God,”  our  own  poet  has  said,  out  of  the 
anguish  of  a  great  sorrow,  “  Though  the  earth 
be  removed,  and  the  hills  be  carried  into  the 
midst  of  the  sea,”  though  temptation  grapple 
with  us  in  its  dread  embrace,  and  trouble 
topple  towards  us  with  menacing  crest — still 

189 


190  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 

the  eternal  God  is  “  thy  refuge,  and  under¬ 
neath  are  the  everlasting  arms.”  1 

The  Lord  of  Hosts  is  with  us.  If  God  be 
for  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ?  It  is  He 
at  whose  summons  all  created  things  marshal 
themselves  like  the  hosts  of  war,  and  work 
together  for  good,  and  spread  out  themselves 
to  be  a  covering  to  those  who  rest  in  peace 
under  the  shelter  of  His  conquering  arm. 

I. 


“  The  Lord  of  Hosts  ’’—the  Lord  of  Sabaoth, 
as  we  know  it  familiarly  in  our  Te  Deum 
is  a  title  with  which  we  are  well  acquainted 
throughout  the  whole  Bible.  It  is  the  war- 
cry  of  the  Books  of  Kings,  and  is  stamped  on 
the  utterances  of  Isaiah  and  the  prophets ; 
in  its  Hebrew  form  it  finds  its  way  into 
the  New  Testament  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  and  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude,  and 
would  seem  to  represent  that  idea  of  strength 
especially  which  underlies  the  sovereignty 
over  things  visible  and  invisible,  all  agencies, 
all  ministrations  and  powers  ;  as  of  a  great 
King  marching  to  war,  who  is  a  most  strong 
tower  to  all  them  that  put  their  trust  in 
Him,  to  whom  all  things  in  heaven  and  in 
earth  and  under  the  earth  do  bow  and  obey. 


1  Deut.  xxxiii.  27. 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


191 


It  is  a  conception  which  opens  up  to  us 
at  once  such  visions  as  were  vouchsafed,  for 
instance,  to  Micaiah  the  prophet  in  the  Book 
of  Kings,  where  the  Lord  is  seen  by  His 
servant  sitting  on  His  throne,  and  all  the 
hosts  of  heaven  are  standing  at  His  right 
hand  and  His  left,  from  Whom  go  forth 
ministers  of  wrath  and  judgment  into  the 
world,  and  kings  move  where  they  are 
impelled,  and  the  arrow  shot  at  a  venture 
is  guided  by  an  unknown  hand  to  be  the 
weapon  of  destiny.  It  is  the  vision  of  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  who  sees  God  in  His  Majesty 
adored  by  veiled  seraphs,  enthroned  in  glory 
and  magnified  in  mystery  by  the  trembling 
and  hiding  of  all  created  things.  It  opens 
up  to  us  the  door  through  which  the  inspired 
evangelist  gazed  into  heaven,  where  angels 
pass  and  repass  on  missions  of  love  or  on 
messages  of  wrath,  wThere  the  vials  of  God’s 
vengeance  are  stored  with  judgment,  and 
blessings  flow  forth  from  His  hand,  where 
Churches  are  upheld  or  are  removed,  where 
nations  and  kings  are  judged,  and  all  the 
busy  life  of  the  world  is  “bound  by  gold 
chains  about  the  feet  of  God.”  “  The  Lord 
my  God  shall  come  and  all  the  saints  with 
Thee  ” ; 1  “  For  I  am  a  great  King,  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  and  My  name  is  dreadful 

1  Zech,  xiv.  5. 


192 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


among  tlie  heathen.”  1  And  perhaps  we  are 
allowed  to  see  that  a  conception  such  as 
this  appealed  to  God’s  people  Israel  with  the 
greater  force,  as  they  realised  the  poverty 
of  their  resources  and  the  weakness  of  their 
real  position  in  comparison  with  what  they 
professed  to  believe  as  to  the  glory  and 
greatness  of  their  destiny  as  the  favoured 
of  the  Lord,  the  peculiar  people  of  the  Most 
High.  They  on  that  little  strip  of  land 
between  east  and  west,  they  pressed  in 
between  the  great  nations  of  the  ancient 
world,  in  imminent  danger  of  being  crushed  ; 
now  in  captivity,  now  restored  to  a  maimed 
existence — no  wonder  they  turned  to  Egypt 
for  the  help  which  they  could  see  and  ap¬ 
preciate  ;  or  made  disgraceful  compacts  with 
their  enemies  whose  hosts  could  apply  the 
practical  stimulus  of  threats  and  oppression. 

When  we  think  of  these  things  we  can 
see  how  this  war-cry,  “  the  Lord  of  Hosts,” 
must  have  been  not  unfrequently  the  rallying 
of  a  vanishing  faith,  the  reassurance  of  a 
well-nigh  exhausted  hope.  “  The  waves  of 
the  sea  are  mighty  and  rage  horribly,  but 
yet  the  Lord  who  dwelleth  on  high  is 
mightier.”  The  thought  of  “  the  Lord  of 
Hosts  ”  turned  the  soul  in  upon  itself  in 
face  of  impending  danger  and  the  gathering 

1  Malachi  i.  14. 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


193 


armies  of  the  enemy,  and  bade  it  remember 
that  they  that  be  with  us  are  more  than 
they  that  be  with  them,  if  faith  be  true  to 
itself  and  can  rest  on  the  certainty  of  its  own 
promises. 

And  this  appeal  is  equally  strong  to-day. 
At  any  moment,  if  we  let  ourselves  go,  we 
may  be  tempted  to  imagine  that  the  hosts 
of  evil  are  too  many  for  us.  It  is  an  easy 
thing  to  fold  our  hands  in  despair  and 
commit  ourselves  to  counsels  of  pessimistic 
hopelessness.  ‘  I  work  on,  but  it  is  of  no 
good ;  Christianity  is  doomed,  it  must  be 
carried  away  by  very  weight  of  numbers. 
The  forces  of  evil  wax  stronger  and  stronger  ; 
unbelief  is  vigorous  in  its  assaults,  immorality 
is  rampant,  carelessness  and  indifference 
abound ;  scheme  after  scheme  of  benevolence 
and  utility  seems  to  fail ;  evil  is  bound  to 
have  its  own  way  in  the  strong  alliance 
which  it  has  made  with  wealth  and  influence, 
and,  indeed,  human  nature ;  why  keep  back 
the  inrushing  tide  with  a  broom  ?  Why 
waste  heart  and  energy  on  a  foredoomed 
failure  ?  Let  us  hold  up  our  hands  and  yield 
to  numbers.’ 

Is  it  not  so  in  the  battle  of  the  soul  with 
sin  ?  My  brethren,  have  you  not  yielded 
again  and  again  because  you  say,  ‘  Everybody 
does  the  wrong  thing  or  applauds  the  wrong 

14 


194 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


cause,’  because  you  are  lonely  and  helpless 
and  singular ;  you  doubt  the  truth  of  your 
own  convictions  because  the  public  opinion 
of  the  moment  seems  to  stultify  you  ?  How 
can  you  resist  when  your  own  weakness  is 
violently  wrested  towards  evil  by  an  over¬ 
whelming  consensus  of  those  who  ought  to 
know,  who  sin  with  apparent  impunity,  and 
defy  God  without  a  pang,  and  persist  without 
fear  of  penalty  ?  It  is  the  loneliness  of  the 
narrow  path  which  frightens  back  into  the 
broad  way  of  destruction  those  who  find 
strength  in  sinning  in  company,  and  profess 
to  believe  that  death  by  plague  does  not 
signify  if  it  be  endured  in  the  companionship 
born  of  an  epidemic.  Surely  the  sinner  in 
his  utter  loneliness,  the  sinner  frightened 
into  sin  by  his  own  powerlessness,  should 
listen  to  this  glorious  title  and  take  hope. 
“  The  Lord  of  Hosts  is  with  us.”  Michael  is 
at  his  side  with  sword  of  flame,  with  his 
glorious  war-cry,  “  Who  is  like  God  ?  ” 
Gabriel  brushes  him  with  his  wing,  as  he 
flashes  by  on  errands  of  imperial  urgency. 
Legions  of  angels  stand  with  drawn  swords 
waiting  his  word  of  command.  The  cloud 
of  the  saints  stoops  down  from  heaven  and 
folds  him  in  its  bright  embrace  ;  God’s  beauty 
and  power  are  all  around  him,  he  breathes 
God’s  air,  he  is  warmed  with  God’s  sun,  he 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


195 


is  awed  by  God’s  beauty,  and  cheered  by 
His  daily  comfort.  Is  it  possible  that  the 
mists  of  sin  can  be  so  deadening,  the  voice 
of  temptation  so  harsh  and  abrupt,  as  to 
shut  off  and  dull  the  sense  of  God’s  majesty, 
and  of  the  countless  agencies  for  good  which 
are  working  all  around  us,  which  survive 
at  last,  even  when  sin  has  done  its  work, 
and  bring  into  harbour  the  poor,  unmasted, 
rifled  hull  which  evil  has  stripped  and  robbed 
of  its  treasure,  and  show  the  exhaustless 
depths  of  the  power  of  God,  who  can  not 
only  create  life  in  all  its  possibilities,  but  can 
even  more  wonderfully  restore  it  by  the  force 
of  redeeming  grace  ? 


II. 

“The  Lord  of  Hosts.”  We  have  only  a 
very  faint  conception  of  the  multitude  of 
agencies  with  which  God  carries  on  His 
beneficent  rule  in  this  world  of  His  creating. 
Viewed  by  us  only  in  the  faint  indications 
which  come  before  us,  they  seem  to  us  to 
be  more  universal  than  we  were  tempted 
in  our  cowardice  to  believe.  The  forces  of 
good  enormously  outweigh  and  outnumber 
the  forces  of  evil,  but  whereas  evil  presses 
upon  us,  and  seeks  to  overwhelm  and  master 
the  will  right  up  to  the  supreme  usurpation 


196  THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


of  possession,  good  would  seem  always  to 
respect  the  imperial  nature  of  man,  and  to 
work  out  nothing,  not  even  his  welfare,  with¬ 
out  the  co-operation  of  the  will — unless  it 
be,  indeed,  that  punishment  which  is  penal, 
where  the  rebellious  will  obstinately  refuses 
to  accept  the  inevitable  penalty  which  jus¬ 
tice  demands  and  sin  has  merited.  (1)  And 
so  we  recognise  the  great  army  of  indirect 
agents  which  God  uses  in  the  service  of  man, 
which  are  all  marshalled  under  the  banner 
of  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  History,  ancient  and 
modern,  is  full  of  the  wonders  done  by  what 
we  call  “  chance,”  but  which  really  is  the 
hidden  action  of  God,  and  His  unexplained 
interference  through  His  creatures.  It  is 
the  fashion  to  laugh  at  the  method  of  God’s 
interposition  between  Balaam  and  his  sin, 
and  yet  it  is  S.  Peter  who  points  out  how 
God  there  uses  as  His  agent  the  dumb 
creation.  Napoleon  is  hurled  out  of  Russia 
by  fire  and  frost,  just  as  Titus,  centuries 
before  him,  found  himself  powerless  to  save 
the  doomed  temple  at  Jerusalem  by  reason 
of  mysterious  agencies  which  fought  against 
him.  Here  it  is  a  little  child  which  seems 
to  be  the  absolutely  inadequate  means  of 
arresting  the  suicide.  Here  the  writer  of 
experiences  in  a  gaol  says,  “  One  of  our 
worst  women  we  ever  had  in  gaol  we  caught 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


197 


one  day  weeping  over  a  daisy.”  This  was 
God’s  indirect  agent  of  appeal  to  her.  Here 
a  chance  wound,  as  it  seemed,  turns  the 
whole  career  of  S.  Ignatius  ;  here  a  chance 
Gospel  which  he  heard  in  church  is  the 
crisis  in  the  life  of  S.  Francis.  Here  a 
chance  meeting  with  a  friend,  or  the  sagacity 
of  a  horse  or  dog,  or  even  a  book  which 
has  turned  aside  a  bullet,  has  shown  the 
agencies  for  our  protection  which  God  uses 
all  around  us ;  but  we  congratulate  ourselves 
and  call  it  good  luck  : — 

“  Earth’s  crammed  with  heaven, 

And  every  common  bash  afire  with  God, 

But  only  he  who  sees,  takes  off  his  shoes ; 

The  rest  sit  round  it  and  pluck  blackberries.” 

(2)  But  God  does  not  confine  His  energies 
to  those  indirect  agencies  which  we  label 
luck,  or  help  us  with  those  calls  upon  His 
creatures  which  we  call  “  chance.”  He 
employs  direct  agents  as  well,  who  marshal 
themselves  under  His  banner ;  His  ser¬ 
vants  which  do  His  pleasure,  and  minister  to 
those  who  are  heirs  of  salvation.  And  first 
among  these  we  must  place  His  angels.  It 
is  difficult  to  induce  people  to  believe  in 
angels  as  anything  more  than  a  refuge  for 
the  religious  artist  who  is  seeking  for 
graceful  forms,  or  as  a  property  belonging 


198 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


to  Christmas  cards,  or,  at  the  most,  as  a 
sort  of  religious  fairy  suitable  to  the  child¬ 
hood  of  the  world,  and  the  product  of  an 
ill-regulated  imagination.  If  we  think  this, 
it  would  certainly  steady  our  conception, 
and  clear  our  ideas,  if  we  would  trace  the 
record  of  the  ministration  of  angels  i  ight 
through  the  pages  ^ie  Angels 

welcome  our  Saviour  into  the  world,  angels 
attend  His  ascending  Majesty  as  He  leaves 
it.  Genesis  opens  the  sacred  writings  with 
its  glimpses  of  angels,  Revelation  closes  it 
with  their  majestic  ministrations.  Day  by 
day  we  link  them  with  us  in  our  worship, 
as  we  call  upon  angels  and  archangels  and 
all  the  company  of  heaven  to  join  with  us 
in  adoring  God.  Day  by  day,  as  Advent 
reminds  us,  we  look  for  the  advanced  guard 
of  angels,  who  will  prelude  the  bursting  of 
doom  and  the  session  of  the  Judge.  Here, 
perhaps,  you  say  is  a  belief  which  experience 
can  neither  affirm  nor  deny.  But,  at  least, 
we  may  say  this,  that  experience  is  bi  ought 
face  to  face  with  many  strange  and  in¬ 
explicable  facts,  which  we  name,  as  we  have 
already  considered,  loosely  as  luck,  and  think 
that  because  we  have  named  them  we  have 
accounted  for  them,  whereas  it  is  a  beautiful 
belief  which  the  tradition  of  the  Church  has 
always  taught,  that  we  have  a  silent  com- 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


199 


panion,  a  silent  witness  of  all  the  secret 
movements,  the  hidden  as  well  as  open  sins 
of  our  life,  and  its  triumphs,  dangers,  and 
temptations.  The  guardian  angel  is  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  conceptions  of  art,  which 
painters  have  lovingly  dwelt  upon,  in  which 
the  angel  of  our  Baptism,  guides  us  as  by 
the  precipices  and  pitfalls  of  life,  until  he 
yields  the  soul  up  into  the  hands  of  Him  who 
created  it.  If  you  will  not  respect  innocence 
and  the  glorious  beauty  of  child-life,  at  least, 
our  Blessed  Lord  would  seem  to  say,  respect 
that  angel,  so  intimate  a  companion  as  to 
be  called  his  angel,  his  own  angel.  Reverence 
that  dread  unseen  agent,  who  folds  his  wings 
about  him,  and  would  shield  him  from  harm. 
There  is  nothing  strange  to  one  who  believes 
in  a  supernatural  world  all  around  him,  in 
the  presence  of  angels,  sent  forth  to  minister 
to  those  that  are  heirs  of  salvation  by  the 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  who  marshals  their 
armies.  But  it  would  be  useless  to  insist  on 
facts  which  belong  to  the  unseen  world  to 
those  who  resolutely  refuse  to  admit  of  its 
existence ;  and  we  who  know  its  experiences 
can  hardly  put  them  into  shape  or  make 
them  intelligible  to  those  who  do  not  see. 
The  marvels  of  astronomy  are  foolishness 
to  those  who  disregard  the  power  of  the 
telescope,  and  the  discoveries  of  the  naturalist 


200 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


are  child’s  tales  to  those  who  are  inclined 
to  discredit  the  revelations  of  the  microscope. 
Our  friend  in  the  street,  who  only  believes 
in  what  he  can  see,  lives  in  a  very  narrow 
world,  only  in  one  corner  of  this,  while  the 
riches  and  glory  of  heaven  and  heavenly 
things  are  foolishness  unto  him,  neither  can 
he  understand  them,  because  they  are 
spiritually  discerned. 

We  descend,  at  all  events,  to  a  ground  of 
more  intelligible  belief,  but  perhaps  only  less 
fiercely  controverted,  than  the  ministry  of 
angels,  when  we  contemplate  the  Lord  God  of 
Hosts  using  the  agencies  of  men.  On  next 
Sunday  in  this  cathedral  we  shall  once  more 
be  called  upon  to  take  part  in  the  solemn 
setting  forth  of  men  for  the  direct  service  of 
the  Almighty.  It  is  true  that  every  child  that 
is  born  into  the  world  is  started  with  a  direct 
and  solemn  mission  to  work  in  the  great  army 
of  God.  It  is  true  that  every  child  that  is 
baptized  is  then  and  there  enlisted  into  the 
direct  service  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  manfully 
to  fight  under  His  banner  against  sin,  the 
world,  and  the  devil.  But  few  will  be 
found  to  deny  that  in  the  ministry  God  has 
provided  Himself  with  special  agents  to  do 
His  special  work,  that  He  who  is  attended  by 
all  the  Hosts  of  Heaven,  and  presses  all 
nations  into  His  service,  uses  the  endowments 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


201 


of  reason  and  grace,  which  gather  round  a 
human  will,  speak  through  a  human  voice, 
and  energise  through  human  actions.  They 
are  strong  words  in  our  Prayer-book  which 
speak  of  the  Christian  ministry  as  “  appointed 
for  the  salvation  of  mankind.”  And  it  is 
because  people  so  little  realise  the  strength 
of  this  agency — what  it  is  and  what  it 
means — that  they  deprive  themselves  of  one 
great  help,  which  God,  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  has 
founded  for  men,  who  are  being  sore  buffeted 
in  the  battle  of  life.  You  know  how  again 
and  again  you  are  appealed  to  here  and  else¬ 
where  to  send  labourers  into  God’s  vineyard, 
not  to  let  the  districts  of  this  huge,  unwieldy 
city  spread  themselves  out  without  at  the 
same  time  sending  to  them  the  living  agency 
of  the  Church ;  and  yet  what  do  we  see  ? 
Public-houses  full  and  churches  comparatively 
empty  ;  Satan’s  ministers  energetic  and  active, 
surrounded  with  ready  helpers,  and  God’s 
ministers,  alas  !  too  often  crippled  and  power¬ 
less.  If  a  man  wishes  to  go  the  broad  way  to 
death,  through  drunkenness,  lust,  dissipation, 
and  unbelief,  he  will  find  a  hundred  agents  to 
help  him ;  if  he  wishes  to  struggle  up  to  God, 
why  does  he  feel  so  powerless  and  feeble  ? 
Why  does  he  seem  not  to  know  where  to 
turn  ?  It  is  too  often  because  he  mistrusts,  or 
misunderstands,  or  fails  to  find  those  ministers 


202 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


of  grace  which  God  designed  to  help  him. 
Satan  is  wonderfully  cunning,  and  knows  the 
value  of  a  question-begging  phrase  and  the 
importance  of  an  error  which  empties  truth  of 
all  its  value.  We  shall  find  that  the  ministra¬ 
tion  of  the  clergy  is  again  and  again  robbed  of 
its  efficacy  because  false  conceptions  have  been 
formed  of  their  aim  and  mission  in  the  counsels 
and  plans  of  God.  If  you  ask  people,  Of  what 
use  are  the  clergy?  some  will  tell  you  that 
they  are  useful  as  setting  a  good  example  in 
the  place  where  they  are  stationed,  that  they 
are  set  as  lights  in  the  world,  as  a  city  set  on 
a  hill,  as  the  salt  of  the  earth.  But  this  is  only 
a  very  small  portion  of  the  truth — this  is  the 
duty  of  all  Christians,  not  of  the  clergy  alone. 
The  idea  of  a  man  who  poses  as  a  good  example 
dressed  in  black  clothes,  would  only  result  in 
making  the  man  himself  a  self-conscious 
hypocrite,  and  too  often  would  repel  those  in 
whom  human  nature  resists  the  too  obviously 
didactic  life  of  a  moral  improver.  God  forbid 
that  we  should  ever  shut  our  eyes  to  the 
immense,  the  utter  importance  of  a  clergy 
whose  lives  are  the  most  eloquent  exponents 
of  what  they  teach,  who  recommend  by 
gentleness,  purity,  and  devotion  the  supreme 
claims  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  No 
doubt  the  minister  of  Christ  ought  to  stand  high 
(if  possible,  the  highest)  in  the  setting  forth  of 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


203 


the  beauties  of  Christian  character.  He  is  the 
good  man,  but  he  is  more.  Then,  people  say, 
he  is  set  in  his  place  to  preach,  to  show  people 
the  way  of  salvation.  Most  certainly  he  is. 
He  is  a  preacher ;  but,  again,  he  is  more  than 
a  preacher.  A  preacher  may  be  a  remote 
being  who  dispenses  Divine  charity  with  all 
the  aloofness  of  the  unpractical  philanthropist 
of  S.  James’s  Epistle.  He  says  to  the  poor 
sinner  shivering  in  his  lonely  guilt,  “  Be 
warmed  ”  ;  he  says  to  the  starving  soul  fed  on 
the  husks  of  swine,  “  Be  filled.”  But  he  gives 
him  no  clothing  to  keep  him  from  the  cold,  no 
food  for  the  awful  hunger  of  his  soul.  And 
once  more,  what  does  it  profit?  What  good 
are  the  thousand  sermons  which  are  preached 
to-day  doing,  unless  they  are  followed  by  some¬ 
thing  more  practical?  Our  Blessed  Lord’s 
advice  to  His  clergy  is,  not  say  to  them  “Be ye 
warmed  and  be  ye  fed,”  but  “  Give  ye  them  to 
eat.”  The  clergy,  the  ministers  of  the  Lord  of 
Hosts,  are  stewards ;  they  have  something  to 
give.  And  what  have  they  to  give  ?  First, 
they  have  to  give  good  advice.  A  cheap  and 
easy  thing,  you  say,  a  poor  treasure  in  itself. 
My  brethren,  not  so,  if  it  be  the  pei  sonal 
advice  for  definite  needs.  Why  don’t  we  use 
our  clergy  more,  not  keep  them  at  arm  s  length 
in  the  pulpit,  but  seek  their  advice  ?  If  you 
were  ill,  you  would  not  attend  a  medical 


204 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


lecture  in  the  hospital,  and  pick  up  what  scraps 
of  information  you  could  as  to  the  healing  of 
your  disease,  but  you  would  seek  the  doctor, 
and  tell  him  your  case,  and  seek  his  help. 
This  is  what  God  meant  His  clergy  to  be,  His 
agents,  His  ministers  to  deal  with  the  indivi¬ 
dual  wants  of  sinful  men,  and  bring  them  to 
Him.  And  in  saying  this,  see  the  goodness  of 
the  Lord  of  Hosts,  in  choosing  men  to  be  His 
agents  in  these  matters,  and  not  the  bright 
angels  ;  men  who  can  speak,  men  who  can  give 
an  answer  hack,  men  who  can  sympathise,  men 
who  can  weep  and  laugh,  and  sorrow  and 
rejoice.  The  very  human  element  in  the 
ministry,  which  sometimes  you  so  despise,  was 
ordained  by  God  to  attract  and  help  those 
whose  chief  enemy  has  been  the  infirmity  of 
their  own  humanity.  But  God  does  not  stop 
at  making  His  clergy  ministers  of  good  advice. 
Here  again  any  good  man  could  do  this,  but 
He  does  store  them  with  certain  privileges  for 
the  relief  of  mankind,  those  means  of  grace 
which  would  more  than  countervail  the  means 
of  death  with  which  the  world  is  so  amply 
stored.  The  ministers  of  Christ  have  some¬ 
thing  to  give.  We  are  sometimes  tempted  to 
think  that  the  message  which  Christ  gave  to 
His  Apostles  to  dispense  was  a  very  simple  one 
after  all,  and  that  ages  of  pious  accretion  have 
added  picturesque,  edifying,  and  imposing 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


205 


accessories,  which  are  in  no  sense  necessary 
nor  part  of  the  original  deposit  of  Faith.  Cer¬ 
tainly,  as  regards  the  main  position,  nothing 
can  be  more  contrary  to  the  fact.  Open  the 
records  in  which  the  Evangelists  have  com¬ 
mitted  to  writing  the  traditions  of  our  Lord  s 
teaching,  and  there  we  find  ordinances,  such 
as  Baptism  and  Holy  Communion,  taking 
their  place  amongst  the  very  essentials  of 
Christian  life.  We  give  the  enemy  an  unfair 
advantage,  we  are  defrauding  men  of  a  real 
benefit  provided  for  them,  if  we  treat  Christs 
methods  as  open  questions  to  be  accepted  or 
ignored  at  will.  The  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  who 
rules  over  the  armies  of  hell,  and  keeps  the 
hosts  of  evil  from  overwhelming  the  world, 
has  provided  for  our  help  and  comfort  a  body 
of  men  intrusted  with  means  of  grace  which 
it  is  theirs  to  dispense.  This  is  why  we  wel¬ 
come  and  encourage  with  our  presence  and 
prayers  those  who  come  forward,  as  on  next 
Sunday,  to  consecrate  themselves  to  the 
service  of  God  and  the  service  of  humanity. 
They  all  form  part  of  the  ministry  of  mercy, 
and  the  service  of  strength,  which  He  vouch¬ 
safes  to  us,  not  as  a  human  barrier  between 
us  and  Him,  but  as  a  link  in  the  chain  of  bless¬ 
ing  wherewith  He  cheers  our  loneliness  and 
strengthens  our  weakness.  O  how  glorious  is 
the  army  of  God  which  encircles  the  children 


206 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


of  His  love,  where  meanest  men  and  brightest 
angels  and  all  creatures  whom  He  bends  to 
His  work  carry  on  unceasingly  the  war  of  the 
Lord,  whose  bitter  strife  shall  end  only  on 
that  day  when  God  shall  be  all  in  all,  and 
death  be  swallowed  up  in  victory. 


III. 

Bear  with  me,  my  brethren,  if  I  appeal  to¬ 
day  for  further  recruits  for  the  army  of  the 
glorious  King.  Again  and  again  we  clergy 
hear  the  cry — “  Ye  take  too  much  upon  you, 
ye  sons  of  Levi.”  If  you  think  so,  come  to  our 
side,  and  share  our  burden,  and  help  us  to 
fight  the  battle  of  the  Lord.  I  suppose  with 
all  its  faults  there  never  was  an  age  when 
people  were  more  in  earnest  than  they  are  in 
the  present  to  redress  the  evils  of  life,  to 
alleviate  suffering,  to  stop  injustice,  to  help 
poor  suffering  humanity  in  its  awful  struggle 
with  the  ills  which  seem  at  times  to  be  almost 
irresistible.  Men  and  women  and  children, 
boys  at  school,  young  men  at  the  Universities, 
in  the  warehouses,  soldiers  in  the  Army,  sailors 
in  the  Navy,  are  all  coming,  here  a  few  and 
there  a  few,  to  join  the  army  of  the  Lord  of 
Hosts  in  the  battle  against  sin.  My  brethren, 
it  is  only  right  to  ask  you  on  this  Sunday, 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


207 


so  near  Christmas,  this  Ember  Week,  which 
means  so  much  to  many  a  man  who  has  offered 
himself  to  God,  what  are  you  doing  for  the 
work  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts?  Surely  there  is 
no  one  who  can  dare  to  stand  altogether  on 
one  side  at  such  a  time  as  this.  There  are 
agencies  for  good  languishing  for  want  of 
support,  men  and  women  who  are  fighting 
hand  to  hand  with  the  enemy,  who  have  to 
stop  and  beg  for  the  sinews  of  war.  The  price 
of  one  dinner  party,  a  tithe  of  the  money  spent 
on  dress,  a  small  proportion  of  the  sum  which 
vanishes  on  luxuries,  would  make  glad  the 
heart  of  many  a  toiler,  who  wistfully  wonders 
where  help  is  to  be  found  for  those  agencies  of 
good  which  are  just  beginning  to  grapple  with 
the  hosts  of  evil.  Oh  the  selfishness  of  a  life 
where  self  sits  as  a  tyrant,  to  which  everybody 
must  contribute.  We  used  to  be  told  as  child¬ 
ren,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  of  the  villages 
depopulated  and  fertility  destroyed  to  make  a 
hunting-forest  for  our  first  Norman  king  ;  it  is 
only  a  type  of  the  unremitting,  remorseless 
callousness  of  the  soul  which  pursues  the 
chase  of  self-gratification,  a  stranger  to  the 
sterner  joys  of  duty  done,  to  the  joy  which 
gladdens  even  angels  for  a  soul  saved,  a  lost 
sheep  brought  home  again,  a  prodigal  regained. 
And  yet  the  subscription  list  and  the  answer 
to  appeals  may  easily  become  the  hush- 


208 


THE  CARDINAL  VIRTUES 


money  to  a  troublesome  conscience,  with 
which  we  buy  ourselves  off  from  work  which 
we  ought  to  do  with  a  payment  which  may 
cost  us  a  trifling  inconvenience,  and  even  be 
transferred  to  the  credit  of  selfishness  in  the 
applause  of  apparent  beneficence.  The  Lord 
of  Hosts  asks  for  personal  service.  There  is 
no  one  so  situated  as  to  be  absolutely  without 
influence,  however  small  that  influence  may 
be.  When  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  was  rebuilt 
in  troublous  times,  Nehemiah  tells  us  of 
those  who  repaired  it,  every  one  over  against 
his  house.  Here  is  the  place  where  our  first 
and  main  help  is  to  be  given  to  the  armies  of 
the  Lord  of  Hosts.  We  groan  and  mourn 
about  the  growing  recklessness  of  the  times, 
about  the  utter  want  of  discipline  in  all  ranks 
of  society.  What  are  we  doing  for  discipline 
at  home?  Have  fathers  and  mothers  any 
right  to  slip  off  the  burden  of  authority  which 
God  has  given  them,  or  to  stultify  by  example 
the  feeble  and  insincere  precepts  which  pro¬ 
priety  extracts  from  them?  Would  it  not  be 
something  if  instead  of  protesting  against  the 
desecration  of  Sunday,  we  gave  up  that  Sun¬ 
day  dinner  party  which  makes  it  impossible 
for  the  servants  to  go  to  church  ;  or  those 
games  which  detract  from  the  solemnity  of 
the  day,  shock  the  thoughtful,  encourage  the 
careless,  and  add  one  more  day  to  the  mono- 


THE  LORD  OF  HOSTS 


209 


tony  of  the  same  pursuit  of  frivolity  unrelieved 
by  seriousness  ?  The  next  time  that  we  mourn 
the  decay  of  morals  let  us  have  a  good  look 
round  our  own  drawing-room,  and  the  books 
which  the  circulating  library  provides  to  suit 
public  taste.  The  next  time  we  are  shocked 
by  youthful  or  childish  depravity,  instead  of 
blaming  the  age,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  we 
have  done  to  protest  against  an  educational 
system  in  which  religion  either  finds  no  place, 
or  is  dishonoured,  or  at  least  suspected.  God’s 
army  moves  forward  under  the  conquering 
banner  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts  ;  He  owns  no 
divided  empire,  He  fears  no  foe,  the  very  un¬ 
godly  He  uses  as  His  sword — and  who  hath 
resisted  His  will?  It  is  His  appeal  to  you 
now  to  come  to  His  side,  as  He  rides  forth 
conquering  and  to  conquer.  It  will  be  your 
shame  and  confusion  if  the  recording  angel 
publishes  abroad  the  indictment  of  your 
cowardice,  and  the  sentence  of  your  sloth — 
“  Curse  ye  Meroz,  said  the  angel  of  the  Lord, 
curse  ye  bitterly  the  inhabitants  thereof : 
because  they  came  not  to  the  help  of  the 
Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty.”  T 


1  Judges  v.  23. 

15 


0*  fuss, 

UNWIN  BROTHERS,  LIMITED, 


WOKING  AND  LONDON. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


01 


2  011 


46  0955 


Date  Due 


4  'V  • 


